


Marvel Online

by Vixen13



Category: Deadpool - All Media Types, Spider-Man - All Media Types, Sword Art Online (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst with a Happy Ending, Character Death, Crossover, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Masturbation, Plot, SAO KNOWLEDGE NOT REQUIRED, Slow Burn, Smut, Strippers & Strip Clubs, Video Game Mechanics, Violence, Voyeurism
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-27
Updated: 2020-03-05
Packaged: 2020-09-27 16:51:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 46,931
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20411098
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vixen13/pseuds/Vixen13
Summary: Peter Parker existed only in the world of Marvel Online, a virtual reality game with dire consequences that none of its 30,000 players had expected. Trapped for a year and a half in a game that allowed players to be the superheroes they always wanted, the virtual game has become their mundane reality. But then the impossible happens: a new player appears, and he calls himself Deadpool. The man is a mystery to everyone, and as curious as Peter is, it's safer to stay away from someone who takes money to kill other players. Of course, that'd be much easier to accomplish if said mercenary would stop stalking Spider-man.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Martin Goodman founded what would later become Marvel Comics. I know literally nothing about this man, but I’m using his name for the sake of the story. Let’s just assume he’s OOC. lol<
> 
> In this AU, DC comics and other independent comics exist, but Marvel comics never did. The name Marvel and the characters within are unknown to the players at the start of the game.
> 
> This AU takes place in the SAO universe, but none of the show’s characters will be appearing in this fic. I will be borrowing the technology and gameplay details from SAO, however. (And a few ideas from Log Horizon because season one was genius.) You do not need to be familiar with the show to read this fic. If you _are_ familiar with the show, you will notice parallels, but the story will **not** be following the main plotline of the show/manga/light novels, nor will I be mirroring any individual characters from SAO.
> 
> Special note on the word **cinematic**. I am using the **wrong word**. Cinematics are usually mini storytelling movies within a game that you can’t interact with, you can only watch. However, there are actions that NPCs and enemies in games can do prior to starting (or sometimes after) an official battle. These actions render the enemy immune to attacks/freeze the player until they’re completed (usually less than 5 seconds) without the need for a full cinematic/cutscene. Google will not provide me with a common term for what this is, so I’m using cinematic for lack of a better word.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gaming terms for those that need them:  
*VR = Virtual Reality  
*MMO = Massive Multiplayer Online  
*RPG = Role Playing Game  
*NPC = Non-Player Character (a character controlled by the game and not a person)  
*EXP = Experience (what you need to gain in order to level up)  
*AoE = Area of Effect means something that affects an area, not just a single player (can be boosts, attacks, defense, and so forth)  
*Farming = a gaming tactic where a player, or someone hired by a player, performs repetitive actions to gain experience, points, or some form of in-game currency.  
*Aggro = triggering the reaction of something in the game through proximity (such as walking close enough to an enemy to make it run over and attack you)  
*Kite = aggroing an enemy and having it chase you to a new location (if you do this to multiple enemies, they form a wavy line behind your character that looks like the tail of a kite)  
*Gaming platform = a system specifically made to play certain types of games  
*Open lottery = open meaning open to the public, lottery being buying a ticket for a cheap price (like $10) for a chance at winning the entire system and game (which can be hundreds or thousands of dollars)  
*Limited release = to create artificial hype and scarcity, many big titles will have a limited number of games available for the release, with a steadier release of games later on. This also helps to limit the first huge influx of players to make sure it doesn’t overload the servers.  
*Beta testers = a group of regular gamers that test a game prior to the official release that purposefully put strain on the system (to make sure it can handle so many players) and find any leftover bugs, typos in items or text blurbs, or discover any unfair combo boosts

_ Colleagues Kayaba Akihiko and Martin Goodman saw to the invention of the fully immersive virtual reality technology known as NerveGear. Most platforms thus far have been unable to take full advantage of NerveGear’s capabilities. Speculation on the creation of the first VRMMORPG has been ongoing for years, but the recent quarrel between creators Kayaba and Goodman may lead to yet another delay in the release of a new gaming platform[...] _

_ The race is on between Kayaba and Goodman, both determined to release their version of a VRMMORPG in their respective countries by 2022. Rumor says that Kayaba’s creation will be set in a fantasy world with no magical elements, drawing a critical eye from many gaming enthusiasts. Meanwhile, Goodman is said to be taking more of a real-life setting approach with an emphasis on fantastical abilities[...] _

_ Beta testing has launched for Kayaba’s Sword Art Online in Japan. In response, Goodman has announced that there will be an open lottery so that those who cannot afford the cost of the NerveGear and the limited opening release of the Marvel Online game will still have a chance to play[...] _

_ The first limited release of Sword Art Online is capped at only 10,000 copies. In response, Marvel Online, Martin Goodman’s love letter to classic comic books, is set to release 30,000 copies during its initial release. Debates on server capacity for the wireless NerveGear’s ability to stay online indefinitely without lag is still a hot topic in gaming communities[...] _

**06/2024**

“Hey, look! It’s Spider-man! Ain’t seen you around these streets in a while.”

Peter smiled, though the friendly effect was lost behind his mask. “What can I say? Queens keeps me pretty busy these days.” He dropped down from the awning he was perched on to walk along the sidewalk like a normal pedestrian, albeit in a bright red and blue costume.

“We could really use your help around here!”

“Awww, Joe!” Peter slapped a hand over his heart. “Are you saying that you miss me?”

Joe tipped his head back and laughed. The action warmed Peter’s chest. It was nice to be remembered in an area he rarely frequented. Joe struggled to talk much outside of his parameters, but that laugh was all his. If Peter were around more often, perhaps Joe would be able to learn more phrases.

Of course, if Peter were around more often, Joe’s chance of death would dramatically spike.

“Say, have you heard of anything weird happening near the park?” Peter asked. It could take a while to gather information just by questioning random NPCs, but sometimes you struck gold.

“There’s always something happenin’ on these streets!” Joe scoffed. That was a fair assessment, and Peter couldn’t blame the guy for saying it, even if it was one of the triggered responses.

They were close to [Washington Market Park](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington_Market_Park), where many heroes stopped for a break between their daily activities. The parks were safe zones, and wherever players gathered, trouble followed. Not just because that was how the system worked, but because a year and a half was a long time.

It could change a person. Himself included.

Still, despite everything, he had to admit that he loved being in New York City. He’d always heard people say that living in NYC was unlike anything else. If the real NYC was remotely like what he was experiencing now, he couldn’t help but agree with the sentiment.

“Well, if you hear of anything, flag me down when I’m swinging by,” Peter said. 

A large rat scampered past, and he hopped over to give it a well-placed kick. It flew into the air and shattered in a burst of fragmented light and color. An alert pinged just above the dissolving bits of code.

+20 EXP

+1 coin

Chump change, but every little bit helped.

“Whatever you say, Spider-man.” Joe heaved a sigh, hands propped on his hips, body language just a touch over-exaggerated as he shook his head.

Peter jogged over to the nearest overhang so he could launch himself back into the air. He waved one hand over his head. “See ya, Joe! Oh, and say hi to your daughter for me—”

The sky went red accompanied by a chorus of sirens. The NPCs in the street started running for cover, shouting overlapping phrases of alarm. Joe stumbled back a few steps, staring at the sky in a mixture of apprehension and frustration.

“Just head home!” Peter yelled above the blaring noise. “You’ll be safe there!”

With that, he jumped onto the overhang and flung himself into the air, shooting out webs to pull himself along the buildings and towards the red, glowing, transparent cylinder in the distance that traveled impossibly high. That’s where the Boss area would be.

_ Shit, shit, shit. How did it even get triggered? It’s too far away from the docks. How did it get this far inland so fast? _

He swung high in order to clear the heavier clusters of buildings and stick to the skyscrapers. Once his path was clear of as many obstructions as possible, he activated _ hyperspeed_. The buildings blurred as he sped from block to block at an inhuman speed. The Boss zone was still so far away…

A notification box popped up in the upper left side of his vision, the edges pulsing to indicate new mail.

Incoming Message: Priority Urgent

“Open,” Peter commanded.

Iron Man’s voice announced the recorded message. “Boss Fight triggered in Financial District, south Manhattan, level 56. All available players please respond. Two low-level players are trapped in the Boss circle. I repeat, two kids in danger on ground level.”

Peter let out a long string of curses and willed his speed boost to go faster, though it did little good. Had the kids been the ones to trigger the Boss? Why were they out so far on their own?

Incoming Call: [Johnny Storm](https://marvel.fandom.com/wiki/Jonathan_Storm_\(Earth-616\))

“Answer.”

“You on your way?” Johnny asked, the sound of flames snapping violently against the wind just barely muted in the background.

“Yeah. Thankfully, I was in the area. You know what the hell happened?”

“Not yet. We’ll have to question the kids once we get them out of there. What I don’t get is why it’s so far north. The next Boss was at the docks on the southern edge.”

Peter frowned to himself. He’d been wondering that exact thing. “You think they kited it that far before the cinematics triggered the official fight?”

“That’d be one hell of a trick if they did.”

The border to Financial District flew by at last. Peter dropped out of _ hyperspeed _and swung at more of an angle to get a sense of the area. He could see the hulking form of the Boss stomping between the skyscrapers a few blocks away.

“I’m at the edge of the Boss circle,” Peter warned.

“You mean the big, red, sky dick?”

“Stop calling it that!”

“I’ll be there soon as I can,” Johnny promised. “Stay alive.”

“Easy for you to say,” Peter grumbled. “End call.” The green telephone symbol blinked out, allowing Peter to fully focus on his surroundings. He passed through the red wall of light and into the battle area.

The rush of thrusters shot by overhead, a steak of red and gold aiming straight for the Boss. Peter followed in that direction, swinging in shorter bursts to help control his speed in case he needed to make an abrupt turn to dodge an area attack. Good thing, too, since he came close to getting a face full of SUV after coming around the corner of a building.

“Whoa!”

He dropped from the swing and stuck to the side of the building. The SUV crashed into a wall of windows with a shower of rubble and glass. Peter could feel his heart hammering in his throat. He wondered, not for the first time, if his actual body was responding the same way.

Dead ahead was a familiar villain. They’d fought [The Lizard](https://marvel.fandom.com/wiki/Curtis_Connors_\(Earth-616\)) once before in the lower levels. Somewhere in the teens, if memory served. The provided backstory was of a scientist turned lizardman by his self-injected experiments. Back then, the Boss had been normal-sized. Currently, it was at least two stories tall.

Peter unfocused his eyes to see the banner displayed near the skyline.

Revenge of The Lizard

Wonderful. Recurring Boss fights were the last thing they needed. It would leave people expecting the same attacks from the first battle, or trying to guess how the original power-up skills could be augmented. Weren’t these fights hard enough without the mind games?

The Lizard stomped on yet another undeserving SUV, tipped its head back, and roared. The claws on its fingertips glowed red with a power-up skill. Iron Man spun around the scaled head, focusing on getting as much damage in as possible during the skill’s enforced pause. A few seconds later, he was shooting straight up into the sky to escape blindingly fast _ scratch _attacks that looked boosted enough to rip through metal.

“Now or never,” Peter said to himself as he jumped into the fray.

Since his attacks were mostly immobilizing and strength boosted, he focused on just hitting as hard as he could at the right times. If he was fast enough, he could interrupt the primary attacks, making it harder for the Boss to charge a power-up attack. He focused on punching and kicking at the joints to unbalance The Lizard while shooting a few web bursts at its feet to keep it contained.

“Is there a backstory to how this lab coat also became two stories high?” Peter asked as he climbed up the back of said giant chunk of fabric. “I’m just saying it feels like a plot hole to me.”

Clasping his fists together, he raised them over his head to slam a blow to the ribs that would hopefully stun for a few seconds, but it never landed. Instead, a warning went off a moment before the edges of his vision blurred red, his health bar dropping a solid 10%, as the giant tail he’d forgotten to keep track of slammed into his side and sent him flying.

Peter landed hard and rolled along the pavement to a stop. The Lizard shrieked and ran at him, claws glowing. Peter gasped for air and pulled himself up onto all fours. He hoped to have enough time to run, but the claws swung, launching a ranged attack of deadly red arcs that cut through the air. Peter braced himself for impact.

_ Clang! _

That was a familiar sound. He looked up to see Captain America in front of him, shield up and deflecting the attack completely.

“That was a close one,” Cap tossed over his shoulder before running at the Boss. His shield spun through the air and connected with the massive scaled jaw, effectively stopping The Lizard’s momentum.

Peter regained his feet and darted in, keeping the stun attacks going as Iron Man swooped back in with another heavy-damage blast of lasers. They kept that up for a decent amount of time, all of their focus concentrated on attacking when it was safe and dodging when it wasn’t. It was a drawn-out battle.

Above The Lizard’s head, the first of three health bars sat only a fourth of the way down.

“We can’t do this alone!” Peter shouted to the other two, though that was stating the obvious.

The Lizard shrieked again, and Cap called the warning for a charged attack. They dove for cover. In their wake, _ scratch _attacks ripped multiple cars to shreds and pulled chunks of stone out of the buildings.

“This guy seriously has it out for the automotive industry,” Peter said to no one in particular.

“Incoming!” Iron Man yelled at them. Peter peeked out from the corner of the building to see the mini-Godzilla charging him.

“Not good, not good.” He climbed straight up as fast as he could to get out of range. Right before the building was hit, a bright orange comet curved through the sky and sent the mass of green scales stumbling into the cross street.

“Backup is on their way!” Human Torch shouted as he covered the Boss in a continuous stream of _ flame shot_.

“Good!” Peter responded as Iron Man flew past for another round of laser fire. “We’re barely putting a dent in that thing.”

They did their best to hold a few more rounds with the Boss, but it was getting harder by the second. Their bodies still responded to the activity with the adrenaline of a real fight, and their hearts pumped fast, leaving them out of breath. It was a heavy mental strain to keep such a close eye on the upcoming attacks and how they changed, which the brain naturally translated to physical exhaustion.

Even with all their levels, skills, and health points in a virtual world, they weren’t unstoppable.

Knowing that, Peter had sacrificed a lot of other skill points and dumped as many as possible into _ detection_, allowing him to detect almost anything around him. That was the only thing keeping him alive at the moment, as it warned him of incoming attacks. However, as the first health bar decreased and the Boss’s attack speed boosted because of it, Peter’s _ detection warning _ (which he secretly called his _ spidey sense _ to fit the motif) was nearly non-stop.

All that was to say: he took a solid backhand to the face that he just didn’t see coming. He was knocked out of the air and rolled down the street, stopping only when he hit a car. Half his hit points were gone, the health bar curving around his shoulder turning from green to yellow. He groaned in pain, his mind convinced that he was in a lot of it and thus making it true.

There was a roar, a pang of metal, and then something impacted a building in a spray of rubble. Peter looked over to see red and gold taking a nose dive to the pavement. Looks like Peter wasn’t the only one knocked out of the sky with that blow.

But it _ did _look like The Lizard was ready to run them over like a freight train.

“_Shit_,” he muttered to himself with feeling. Nobody was in position to stun the Boss before the stomping happened.

Two metallic feathers chose that moment to zip through the air and hit The Lizard in his beady eyes. It caused him to stumble back, effectively stunning him for the second they needed to recover. Cap was already taking advantage of it.

Peter turned in the direction the weapons had come from and discovered two heroes he’d never seen before, both with teenage avatars, which meant they were likely even younger in real life. Both were dressed in terrible outfits. Not because they were low-quality items, though he assumed they were, but because they were just poor color and style choices.

_ Definitely kids. _

The boy had only half a wing of metal feathers left. He was missing an arm, and his hit points were dangerously low and recovering much slower than Peter’s own regeneration. The girl rushed forward to press a medipack to Peter. It burst in a pleasing white glow, and his health bar jumped up to three-quarters full.

“What level are you guys?” Peter asked as he pulled himself to his feet. The look on her face said it all. “Don’t tell me you two were the ones who triggered the Boss?”

“It wasn’t our fault!” the boy immediately defended. He had one hand gripping the stub of his other arm. The red, digital mesh could be seen between his fingers. At least he wasn’t bleeding hit points anymore.

“Get them out of here!” Cap yelled, taking another hard hit to his shield.

“Time to go!” Peter agreed as he grabbed the two and ran.

“But what about them?” the girl protested. “We have to help!”

“Look out!” The boy pointed up to a chunk of building falling their direction.

Before Peter could get his hands up, a transparent shield domed around them, taking the brunt of the impact before fizzling out. So [Sue Storm](https://marvel.fandom.com/wiki/Susan_Storm_\(Earth-616\)) had joined the battle somewhere. Peter didn’t take the time to look for her. He just tugged the kids through the streets, aiming for the edge of the Boss zone.

“Backup arrived. Don’t worry about it,” Peter promised. “We just need to keep you two alive through these attacks.”

Behind them, The Lizard roared and stomped around as the sounds of attacks paused. That must have meant they cleared the first health bar and triggered the next set of boss attack skills. Peter hoped that jumping over to their small group wasn’t one of them.

“What’re your names?” Peter asked, trying to distract the kids that kept glancing over their shoulders in fear.

“[Archangel](https://marvel.fandom.com/wiki/Warren_Worthington_III_\(Earth-616\)),” the boy replied. Peter refrained from quipping out loud that it was way too pretentious a hero name for someone whose level looked barely over thirty.

Another deafening roar behind them and, abruptly, all the manholes on the street burst into the air. From the holes spewed forth clouds of insects. It wasn’t surprising to encounter an Area of Effect attack with a Boss, but it wasn’t one Peter could deal with well. All his stats were in strength, and punching a few bugs at a time would do no good.

Their group skid to a stop as the bugs converged and flew at them. 

“Please tell me one of you has a wide range attack,” Peter said.

Archangel pulled his half-a-wing up to cover his face and said nothing. That wasn’t encouraging.

“I got this!” his friend declared as she placed herself between the swarm and the other two.

She planted her feet and held her arms rigid before her. Activating her specialty skill, fireworks burst from her palms in an array of colors. Her hands swept side to side as she kept up with the swirling mass around her. The now roasted insects dropped like, well, _ flies_, shattering in little blips of light as they hit the ground.

Peter swatted at a few left over. It was a lucky break that she had that skill. “Not bad, kid.”

She turned around with a proud smile. “The name’s [Jubilee](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jubilee_\(comics\)).”

There were a few loud booms and crackles in the distance. Peter pulled the two along and got them running again. “Let’s find someplace to hide before another one of those attacks hits.”

“Where are we supposed to hide?” Archangel complained. “The computer knows where we are always! This is frickin’ stupid!”

_ Oh, jeeze. How young is this kid? _

“You just have to learn how to work the system,” Peter said. He looked around them as they ran, noting the street signs, trying to find someplace familiar.

“We shouldn’t get too far away from the main group,” Jubilee fretted. “If the Boss corners us, it’ll take too long for others to catch up. We won’t stand a chance!”

“Normally, that would be true,” Peter agreed. “But we need you two safe so I can join the fight again. The faster we defeat the Boss, the better.”

“There _ is _no place safe!” Archangel raged, likely to cover up how scared he was. Poor kid.

Peter made a sharp turn at a cross street. “Don’t worry. I’ve got friends around here, but you gotta trust me.”

“Friends?” Archangel scoffed. “What the heck does that mean?”

The manholes rumbled again, this time jumping erratically as rats poured out onto the street. As a Boss power, they wouldn’t even be good for collecting coins, which was probably the most annoying part of it. Jubilee let loose on them without pause, and Archangel crouched to use his still regrowing metal wing to mow down the ones that escaped the fireworks.

Meanwhile, Peter looked like an idiot trying to clog dance as he stomped on any rats that came close.

“What if there are more attacks like this, but strong, and you’re gone?” Archangel complained, kicking a rat into a lamp post as he stood. “We won’t survive!”

“Come on,” Peter insisted and got them moving again.

It would be easier to show than to explain. He had a feeling the kid would argue with him if he blatantly laid out the plan. After all, most people assumed the NPCs were only there to shout random phrases, run shops, or provide quests. Players took a lot of the gameplay for granted.

It wasn’t long before he was running down a familiar road full of shops. NPCs huddled inside, waiting out the fight. Some of them cheered to see heroes, others just stared, and a handful blatantly ignored everything around them. Peter headed straight for Stefan’s Deli.

“Why are we stopping?” Archangel fretted as Peter began to pound on the shop’s door.

“They won’t let us in so long as we’re inside the Boss circle,” Jubilee said, as if Peter was too naive to know.

“Stefan! Stefan, it’s me, Spider-man! I told you I’d visit your new shop, so open up!” Peter shouted through the glass, one fist banging on the door hard enough for an error message to pop up over the building.

Immortal Object

Despite how much damage battles did, it was all aesthetic. Buildings weren’t capable of being permanently altered. Once the fight was finished, everything would go back the way it was. No matter how hard Peter hit the glass door, it would never break.

After enough noise, Stefan reluctantly poked his balding head out from a door in the back, likely a storage room that him and his wife were hiding in, waiting out the battle. He scowled at Peter. “Shouldn’t you heroes be saving the city?”

That was what NPCs always said when there was a battle going on and a player wasn’t involved. Peter ignored it. “They’re just kids, Stefan! Please just let them hide here until we finish things.”

“What are you thinking?” Archangel hissed. “He’s just an NPC.”

Peter turned to them. “You’ve gotta trust me on this. Drop out of your hero costumes.”

Both of them were startled at the request, though that was to be expected. People rarely switched to their secret identities anymore. It meant losing all of the buffs their items gave them, which was dangerous. Peter asking for this in the middle of a fight must have sounded insane.

Archangel went into a tirade, informing Peter of just how crazy of a request it was. Jubilee kept glancing between a worried-looking Stefan and her friend. Peter dropped his hands onto her shoulders, giving them a gentle squeeze. She looked up at him with wide, scared eyes.

“I’m not going to let you get hurt,” Peter promised. “Area of Effect attacks can’t reach inside safe zones. NPC owned buildings are safe zones.”

“But we’re not allowed _ inside _!” Archangel yelled, arms flailing.

“_ Heroes _ aren’t allowed inside, but your player icon disappears when you have your secret identity activated.”

There were a tense few seconds as Jubilee considered this, the other two anxiously waiting on her decision. Peter’s stomach roiled, afraid of what the next wave of attacks might be. The second health bar on the Boss could drop any minute now.

“Trust me,” Peter insisted.

Jubilee took a deep breath before her hand moved up to swipe at the air. Peter couldn’t see her pop-up screens while standing in front of her, so he just hoped she was selecting what he needed her to. She hesitated only once before tapping a command. The brightly colored outfit she was wearing faded away, leaving her in a plain-looking pair of shorts and t-shirt.

The green diamond floating over her head — her player icon — blinked out.

The door beside them jingled, causing all three to flinch. Stefan stuck his head out and beckoned at Jubilee. “There’s always something happening on these streets,” he muttered as he pulled the girl inside.

Archangel gaped. “But why is he—”

“Questions later,” Peter interrupted. “The game won’t let you inside until you switch to your secret identity.”

“Come on!” Jubilee called through the door.

“But the game shouldn’t let us inside at all!” he insisted.

“The game didn’t,” Peter said. “Stefan did.”

Though it was obvious that Archangel was still having a hard time wrapping his head around things, Jubilee’s panic and the roar of The Lizard in the distance spurred him to action. He changed as well, hiding his player icon not just from other players, but from the game’s algorithms as well. Peter shoved the kid at the door, and Stefan pulled him inside.

Peter was finally able to breathe a sigh of relief. “Thank you.”

Stefan offered a grave look. He was quiet for a moment, likely struggling to say what he wanted instead of what he was programmed to. “There’s always something happening on these streets.”

“But today, you get to be the hero, Stefan.” Peter grinned under his mask.

Stefan looked surprised and then bashful. “Good luck out there, Spider-man.”

He closed and locked the door, ushering the kids to the back room. Peter saw Stefan’s wife in the back, checking them over for injuries and pulling out chairs for them. Jubilee looked over her shoulder, worry blatant on her face, so Peter offered a thumbs up before swinging away.

The kids were officially inside an immortal object. They would be safe. He could finally focus on the battle at hand.

By the time Peter made it back to the fight, more members of The Avengers had joined in, and the Boss was on the third health bar. Apparently, the new specialty attack was a wide-range acid spray and a charged hit from the giant tail. Not fun.

Peter jumped around the buildings as high as he could go, using his webbing to slow The Lizard down or to stop the tail from moving around enough to effectively use the charged attack. It was rough going, as usually, these high-level fights had a lot of planning and strategy going into them. Currently, they were all flying by the seat of their pants and hoping for the best, chipping away at the Boss’s health bar with brute force.

From his vantage point on top of a building, Peter saw [Quicksilver](https://marvel.fandom.com/wiki/Pietro_Maximoff_\(Earth-616\)) running by. That was a problem because he could _ see _the hero, rather than just the blur of him. He was getting tired and slowing down. They all were, really.

The bigger problem was that the Boss acted in the opposite manner, his attack speed boosting the lower his health dropped. His charged tail attack whipped forward and caught Quicksilver when he stumbled to try and avoid it. The hero went flying.

Peter adjusted his web distribution in a flash, spraying a net to catch the speedster before the pavement below took off even more hit points. Quicksilver bounced in the suspended trap a few feet from the ground. He immediately started thrashing.

“Get me out of this!” He cursed and tipped his head back to glare at Peter. “I’m a sitting duck!”

_ Ungrateful, _ Peter groused to himself as he crawled down the side of the building. Quicksilver needed a medipack immediately. Was the idiot not paying attention to his health bar?

Peter dropped down in front of the still flailing hero and pulled a medipack from his inventory. It shimmered into existence and burst just as quickly when Peter tapped to activate it. Quicksilver’s hit points climbed back up, but the bar was still yellow.

“What is this shit made of?” Quicksilver snapped, putting all his might into pulling one arm out of the webbing.

To be truthful, Peter always wanted to boast about how he’d made his webbing, but people were never serious when they asked for details. “Just hold on. I’m deactivating it—”

“Look out!”

A powered-up _ slash _attack from The Lizard ripped the webbing to shreds and sent both Peter and Quicksilver sailing through the air and then rolling along asphalt. Quicksilver’s health bar dropped to red, and Peter estimated that his was less than a quarter full, having taken the brunt of the attack.

Groaning, he pulled himself up and looked around. Everyone was gasping for breath and looking haggard. Captain America was curled up behind his shield, taking blow after blow, his health bar jumping down every time, dangerously close to falling into the yellow. Above him, Iron Man was doing his best to distract The Lizard long enough for Cap to run.

Iron Man was the only person with a health bar that was decently in the green thanks to earning his Mantle, Invincible, which heavily boosted his defense. The Lizard’s eyes were glowing red, _ Rage Mode _ activated, and Peter could just imagine it leaping into the sky and snapping those teeth around Iron Man, defense boost or not.

Cap went down, but he rolled out of the way before getting stomped. A hit almost too fast to see spiked Iron Man into the [Four Trees](https://artandarchives.wordpress.com/2014/04/08/group-of-four-trees-by-jean-dubuffet/) statue. The Lizard roared, head snapping around and looking for the next hero to crush. Peter’s heart was nearly beating out of his chest as he forced himself to his feet, terrified that he was about to run to his doom but unable to stay down and watch someone die.

“Maximum Effort!”

Something red and black was freediving from the top of a skyscraper and landed solidly on the back of The Lizard’s neck. Twin katanas sank into the scales, a burst of charged power flashing around them a moment later. The Lizard howled and tossed his head, but the unknown man held on like it was a bull riding contest, one hand in the air.

Red, oblong, geometric shapes rose from the contact points of the swords before disappearing, indicating the blood that the Boss was losing. The last of its hit points were draining rapidly. The strange player used his free hand to pull out a gun and shoot the back of The Lizard’s head point blank.

With a shriek, the Boss dropped to its knees, twitched, and then burst into bits of colored light and code, all of it fluttering away like butterflies. The player easily landed on his feet and fist pumped at the kill shot bonus he’d achieved for coming in at the last second and providing the finishing blow.

Notification boxes popped up around Peter as well, showing the experience and coins he gained, as well as his randomly distributed Boss item. It was a decent item, but he knew he wouldn’t have a use for it. He’d sell it later. He waved the box away, focused on more important things.

“Who the hell are you?” Iron Man demanded as he regained his feet. Captain America walked over to stand by his shoulder, both of them eyeing the newcomer with distrust.

Peter stared at the diamond floating over the mysterious person’s head. It was orange, not green. _ Player killer. _

“Who? Little ol’ me who just saved the day?” The man asked, one hand flopping onto his chest as he presented a weird sort of curtsy. “Why, I’m the Merc with the Mouth, the Man with a Plan, the Best Ass This Side of Queens.”

Peter unfocused his eyes and saw the name Deadpool hovering over the player’s shoulder. Only because he was staring so hard did he see the words glitch, the letters jolting with 8-bit colors like a video card that couldn’t handle the input. Peter’s eyebrows furrowed. He looked up at the floating diamond again, but nothing else strange happened.

“So you show up just in time to get the kill bonus?” Iron Man snapped. “People could have died!”

“Hey, now! I saved everyone’s lives. I’m a damn hero!” Deadpool cackled, his words both excited and sarcastic. “You’re just jealous that you didn’t get to look as cool as me.”

Cap took a threatening step forward, but Deadpool called an item from his inventory that wrapped around his torso. “Ah, ah! You know what this is?”

“How the hell—” Iron Man started but didn’t get to finish.

Deadpool slapped the button at the center of his chest and blinked out of existence. Peter gaped. _ A teleporter? _ He’d heard nothing through the information brokers about anyone completing the rumored quest to retrieve that thing, or if it had even been real. Well, they knew _ now _that it was real, obviously.

“Well, that was weird,” Johnny said as he jogged over to Peter. “Honestly, this whole thing from start to finish was weird.”

“You’re tellin’ me.” Peter shook himself, trying to move past the presence of a player nobody had ever seen before. Someone that strong and with such rare items should have popped up on the radar long ago.

“You okay?” Johnny asked. There was a hint of guilt in his voice, like there always was during things like this.

“I’m fine,” Peter reassured.

Johnny opened his mouth but stopped, choosing instead to just clap Peter on the shoulder. Even after so long, Johnny still let their past plague him. Peter had said a thousand times that there was nothing to worry about, but it never made a difference.

Running footsteps caught their attention. Around the corner came Jubilee and Archangel, the both of them frantically looking across the gathered players before doubling over with relief when they saw Peter alive. It pulled at his heartstrings to know they were so worried about him. Iron Man made a beeline over to them.

“You two! What happened?”

Archangel immediately went on the defensive. “We didn’t get anywhere _ near _the docks!”

Jubilee nodded, standing up straight and looking sincere. “We were farming the sewers in Chinatown, and we crossed into Financial District without realizing it, but we were only a block or so south. That’s all!”

“It just showed up out of nowhere!” Archangel insisted. “We turned the corner and the cinematics started. We tried to run, but it didn’t matter. We couldn’t escape the Boss circle before it was on us.”

“A random Boss that strong was hiding in the sewers?” Quicksilver asked, mostly ignoring the medipacks [Scarlet Witch](https://marvel.fandom.com/wiki/Wanda_Maximoff_\(Earth-616\)) was rapidly activating on him.

“No,” Cap said, voice grave. “We confirmed that Return of The Lizard was the event Boss attached to the docks on the southernmost point of Financial District.”

The tension in the air made it hard to breathe. Boss battles were supposed to be locked to their event areas. They weren’t supposed to able to move outside of their set location or the circle that formed when the fight was aggroed. They weren’t supposed to be a random encounter.

But the rules had changed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh, man. I set up so much stuff. Don’t worry, I will get to all of these plot threads eventually! And yes, instead of having the different floors like there is in SAO, MO is broken up into different neighborhoods. Which is fun, since I know nothing about NYC outside of google. :-D
> 
> Fun fact: “Detection” is a skill from SAO, specifically mentioned in s1e4. It worked a little too magically, just like spidey sense, so I thought it would be perfect. All the other skills I kinda made up on the spot. Some of them may or may not be attack names from my years of playing Diablo 1, 2, and 3.
> 
> And as always, dear readers, thanks for giving my crazy ideas a chance. When I say literally nobody asked for an SAO crossover, I mean _nobody_ asked for it, yet here I am. So thank you to everyone willing to put up with me and click on this anyways. Love you guys.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'd like to thank Aerographer and Nimohtar for being dedicated beta readers for this and letting me come at them to complain, brainstorm, and ramble at all times of the day or night.

11/2022

“_Link start_.”

･ ｡

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･ *ﾟ｡ 

･ ﾟ*｡･ﾟ★｡

☆ﾟ･｡°*. ﾟ

* ﾟ｡·*･｡ ﾟ*

ﾟ *.｡☆｡★ 

* ☆ ｡･ﾟ*.｡

* ★ ﾟ･｡ * ｡

･ ﾟ☆ ｡

#  Welcome to Marvel Online

Character Select: Peter Parker

Confirm Cancel

* * *

Two hours later

Peter tumbled backwards onto the sidewalk and rolled into the street. Car tires squealed accompanied by people yelling at him to get out of the road. He groaned as he pushed himself up onto his feet and made his way back over to the sidewalk, letting the flow of traffic start up once again. The mugger in the alley ignored him completely.

“What the hell?” Peter complained. “You didn’t even come after me!”

“That’s because you flew right on out of his aggro field, and he forgot you existed,” a voice said.

Peter turned to find another player walking up to him, all blonde hair and playboy build. The guy looked like he was struggling to contain his laughter. Peter tried not to pout. “Nothing I do works on him!”

“There’s no shame in chasing rats to boost your experience before moving on to harder battles.” The guy grinned wide, but his easy confidence said he wasn’t the kind of person to be chasing rats.

“I got this game in order to be a hero, not an exterminator,” Peter groused.

Blue eyes sparkled as the guy chuckled before jutting out his hand. “Johnny Storm.”

“Nice!” Peter said, genuinely enjoying the name chosen. He shook Johnny’s hand. “Peter Parker.”

Johnny’s eyebrows shot up. “You really went for basic when choosing your secret identity, yeah?”

“Alliteration is a classic,” Peter defended.

“Sure.” Johnny grinned before nodding at the mugger who had been threatening a woman over her purse with the same repetitive actions ever since Peter had been tossed out into the street. “You’re going about this all wrong.”

“I’m discovering that,” Peter deadpanned.

“First of all, this is full-body interactive, which means that if a move works in real life, it will work here. The same goes for whatever _ doesn’t _work in real life. So start with getting a better fighting stance.”

Johnny walked Peter through the basics of hand-to-hand combat, covering stability, form, center of gravity, and how to properly throw a punch. Peter soaked it up like a sponge. He’d taken karate classes back in elementary school, so he picked it up pretty quick. (Not that his three months in those classes had taught him all that much.)

“Now, a good punch alone won’t be enough,” Johnny said once Peter was back in position. “Hold up your fist like you’re getting ready to throw a right hook. Good. Now focus on your fist, the game will do the rest.”

Focus on his fist? Peter wasn’t sure what that was supposed to mean, but he attempted it. He stared at his knuckles and just became aware of the muscle tension and position of his fingers. Then it happened. Little strings of light were being sucked into his fist and causing it to glow a pale blue.

“Whoa!”

“The game is all in our heads, so just focusing on the attack you want will work. You don’t have a lot of attacks to choose from at a low level, so this is a basic _ charged hit._ Now! Throw the punch.”

Peter did, punching the air in front of him. A ring of blue light burst around the spot where his fist stopped and the skin stopped glowing. “That’s so cool!”

“Right?” Johnny grinned. “Later you’ll get to use power-ups that you have to charge through basic attacks in order to use, but they’re strong. There’s a lot of nuance to it once you get the hang of the game and start gaining more skills. It’ll come with time and practice.”

“You sure seem to have it figured out.”

Johnny shrugged. “I was a beta tester.”

“Lucky! How far did you get?”

“The group of us only managed to get five neighborhoods open prior to the launch, but we came across a lot of cool events. The game is packed with them.”

“You gonna share that info?” Peter asked with a smirk.

Johnny crossed his arms. “Maybe. After I get there first.”

“Cheapskate.”

“Hey! Who’s helping you with your training wheels here?”

Peter laughed, but it reminded him of the task at hand. He looked back at the mugger and the cowering NPC in front of him. “Okay, let’s do this!”

Stepping into the alley triggered the aggro once more and the mugger turned and delivered his line, “Just keep moving, punk!”

“Leave her alone!” Peter demanded. He secretly enjoyed being able to roleplay as a hero, but it was a little embarrassing to get into his character with Johnny behind him.

“I’m gonna teach you a lesson!” the mugger shouted before barreling forward.

“Remember to dodge!” Johnny called from the sidewalk. “Defense is just as important as offense.”

Peter sidestepped the first wild attack pretty easily._ Probably because I’m still so low level. The attacks are slow and easy to read. _ So he took advantage of that, moving around his target until he had a good angle to work with. He slid his foot back to gain a fighting stance and charged up his fist.

The mugger whirled around in time for Peter to let the punch fly. It landed with a shower of blue sparks on the guy’s chest. He staggered back, stunned. It left him wide open for Peter to come in with more punching and a knee to the gut. A final charged kick to the back had the guy faceplanting into the dirty concrete. He stayed down.

A notification box popped up over the prone body.

You have defeated the criminal!

Call the police and send him to jail.

Make sure this kind of trash is never seen again.

“What’s this?” Peter asked, confused at the options.

“The choices you make for your character can affect your ranking. There’s a Mantle System in place where players who win certain achievements can gain a boost and a special tagline for their hero name, but it’s hard to get. Only one person can gain a specific Mantle, and there’s only so many that can be handed out. Nobody in the beta test managed to get one. I only know about it from the leaked gameplay news in the forums.”

“So you can get a unique player boost from killing criminals?” Peter didn’t like that concept at all.

Johnny shrugged. “Maybe, but most people don’t know about the Mantle System or even what the awards are or how to achieve them, so it shouldn’t affect gameplay. At least, not yet.”

“Can you kill the other NPCs?”

“Yeah, but the game doesn’t give you anything for it.”

“What if someone went around killing all the hot dog vendors because they’re bored?” Lots of games had weird challenges that popped up among the players. As random as killing off all the hot dog vendors sounded, it was totally plausible. Peter had seen weirder trends happen in Grand Theft Auto and The Sims.

“If you kill an NPC, a new one pops up to fill the void, so population of the game won’t decrease and there will always be someone selling hot dogs.”

“Still seems risky to allow players the option. Feels like a recipe for chaos.”

Johnny shrugged. “I’m sure the development team will figure that out the hard way. For now, it’s mostly just there for roleplaying reasons.”

“Hmmm…” Peter selected the first option.

Police sirens were heard instantly, and a few seconds later, a cop car pulled up. One officer put the criminal in the backseat while the other walked over to Peter. “We don’t need people going around the law. Next time, call the police before getting involved.”

The cop didn’t even acknowledge how happy that line made Peter. It was like a real comic book! The law enforcement didn’t like vigilante heroes. _ So cool! _ The NPC who had been threatened walked over to Peter next, still clutching her purse to her chest. She thanked Peter profusely for his help. Two more notification boxes popped up.

+200 exp

+10 coin

“Yes!” Peter punched the air in excitement. “That’s more like it!"

“A few more of those, and you might gain a level.” Johnny waved his hand. “C’mon. I’ll show you how to spot the easy ones. Once you level, you’ll be able to take on stronger bad guys. Fight smarter, not harder, that’s what will keep you ahead on the leaderboard.”

Peter jogged after Johnny and threw an arm around his shoulders. “Man, am I lucky to have found you today.”

“Damn right, you are.”

Hours raced by as Peter teamed up with Johnny to take down all the petty crime they could find. They both attacked during some of the harder opponents, which gave them a good amount of experience, but it split the coin earned. That was fine, of course, since the harder baddies offered a higher return. By the end of the day, Peter almost had all the cops’ triggered phrases memorized.

They decided to finish the day by buying some food at one of the aforementioned hot dog vendors.

“Five coin for a New York dog?” Peter complained.

“If you don’t feed your avatar at least once a day, your stats will drop.” Johnny tapped his screen to pay for his food. “Besides, it’s only five rats. I told you not to skip them.”

“Yeah, yeah. Every little bit counts,” Peter grumbled as he reluctantly paid for his meal. “I worked so hard for that money, though…”

“People gotta make a living, kid,” the tattooed vendor said.

“You’re all ganging up on me.”

Johnny laughed and led them back in the direction of Central Park. “You should probably eat some real food soon, too.”

Peter checked the time. “Holy shit, I’ve been playing all day!”

“Yeah, this game is a huge time suck, but I love it.” Johnny shoved a bite of food in his mouth. “Mmm…”

“Being able to taste the food is a really cool touch.” Peter admired his delicious looking collection of pixels. “But I guess it makes sense, seeing as how it’s all about brain waves.”

“If you don’t eat that fast enough, it’ll expire and shatter. Street vendor food has a fast time limit.”

“Crap!” Peter chomped his way through the hot dog. He wasn’t about to waste that five coin.

“So you’re gonna wait on picking a hero name?” Johnny asked and nodded at the name he saw hovering over Peter’s shoulder.

Peter peeked at Johnny’s namecard, having forgotten he could do that almost all day. The hovering text box simply said “hero” in gray letters rather than the bold lettering they would be later after a name was picked. Just like Peter’s. “You’re waiting, too.”

“I’m gonna hold off until my first event boost so I can fit it to a motif. You?”

Peter shrugged. “I haven’t thought up anything that I like yet.”

“You can always change it later.”

“Nooo! It takes three months before you can change it. What if I’m stuck with something awful?”

“No faith in your own decision making, I see,” Johnny snarked.

“Well, I spent all my post-college savings on this game, so yeah, I make terrible life choices.”

Johnny just laughed.

Peter tipped his head back and looked at the vibrant world around him, taking in a deep breath of smells his rural town didn’t have and listening to the cacophony that was a big city. He didn’t regret spending so much to buy the game rather than using that money to help him move out on his own and find a job. He _ should _regret it. But he didn’t.

How could he? He was living the life of his dreams! With enough dedicated effort, he could become a real superhero, just like all the characters in the comics he had grown up with. Despite what everyone else in his life said, that was a worthwhile goal.

They walked past [Inventors’ Gate](https://foursquare.com/v/inventors-gate/4bba756698c7ef3bd8253302) and made their way along Terrace Drive into the heart of Central Park. It was full of green trees and bright flowers, the stone path beneath their feet worn smooth, moss growing between the cracks. The late sunlight streaked through the leaves overhead, bathing everything in oranges and pinks. The park was a brilliant spot of green surrounded by skyscrapers and the first thing players saw when entering the game.

Peter was in love with it.

“How long are you planning on playing tonight?” Johnny asked.

“Super late, probably. It’s hard to stop.” Peter stretched his arms over his head with a happy hum. “But I’ll grab some real food before that. I’ve got a pizza in the fridge.”

“Yeah, I should nuke a hotpocket or something.”

“Just two nutritionally sound dudes being dudes.” Johnny shoved Peter, and they both laughed. “I’m supposed to meet up with some gamer friends of mine tonight. Wanna join? Or is a beta like you too good for us?”

Johnny snorted. “I guess I could give you guys a day’s worth of my time. Wanna meet back here in an hour?”

“Sure!” Peter swiped his hand down and called up the player menu. He tapped the icons and then paused. “Wait… How do I log out again?”

“It’s at the bottom of the menu,” Johnny directed, calling up his own. “See? Right h—” He frowned at the screen Peter couldn’t see. “Where is it?”

“Oh man, the server guys must be freaking out if we’re not the only ones with that glitch,” Peter said, submitting an error form for the problem before tapping the Help button to access the instructions on how to use NerveGear. “What’s the backup log out?”

Johnny was unnaturally silent in response.

Peter looked up in concern. “What’s wrong?”

“There isn’t one. I’ve read all the manuals. The log out was supposed to be part of the NerveGear functions, not the game.”

“What? Then why is it gone on both of our screens?”

“I don’t know…” Johnny was looking around, trying to see if any other players appeared to be having the same issue.

Peter clicked on the option for emergency help, but the tech team for the game didn’t respond. Well, they must be busy if there was this big of a glitch. It would be solved soon, right?

“There’s gotta be some other way to log out,” Peter said.

“Sure, if someone outside takes off the NerveGear, it’ll force a disconnect.” Johnny frowned. “My roommate should be home at midnight, but I don’t know if he’ll notice anything. I’ve fallen asleep with it on before. Shit.”

Peter was starting to feel panic swell in his chest. “My parents left for the weekend. I’m alone in the house.” He shook out his hands and paced a few steps, taking deep breaths to remain calm. “It’s fine. It’s just a glitch. This would look bad on the company if it lasted very long, right?”

“Right. Which is the part I don’t get. If there was a blatant issue like this, one that could seriously hurt their profits if people started freaking out about it, then why not force log out all the players and issue a notice saying they needed to do some maintenance?”

“An issue like that on the first day is bad for publicity, too,” Peter reasoned, but they both knew he was reaching. Of the two options, force log out was better, since being trapped in the game could be potentially harmful. People needed to eat, or take medication, or pick up their kids or something…

“I don’t like this,” Johnny muttered.

As if on cue, bells sounded over the city and the sky went red. Players began to pop up around them as the game forced them back into Central Park. Peter spun around, eyes wide and chest tight as he saw more confused players appearing in various states of angry, annoyed, confused, and worried. Everyone was shouting overlapping questions and watching the sky in concern.

The park was packed as every player logged in was collected and dropped into the biggest safe zone of the game. Not that anyone looked like they felt safe at all. In the sky above them, a single red text box blinked at them with the word, “Emergency.”

“You think this has something to do with glitch?” Peter asked, his voice not as strong as he wanted it to be. Others around him voiced the same question in various forms.

“I don’t know,” Johnny said, voice grim.

The bells came to an abrupt stop, and the crowd noise around them faded with it as everyone waited on what would happen next. The tension in the air was thick. It was tough to draw a breath, even though Peter knew that was all in his head. Everything, the whole world around him, was all in his head, though…

_ That’s right. None of it’s real. It’s just a game. No need to panic. _

The blinking message box in the sky stretched and ripped, tendrils of smoke and forking bits of lightning bursting from the edges. The black void it created was filled with stars and shifting colors of nebulas and swirling galaxies. Giant hands pulled the void wider, and through it, stepped a man large enough to engulf the entirety of Manhattan.

He was dressed in classic comic book style with bold colors in distinct panels on his outfit, clearly defined muscles underneath, and decorative armor. He was the epitome of the ultimate foe that heroes would have to fight. His towering form, intense presence, and backdrop of space would have him later named by the players as [Galactus](https://marvel.fandom.com/wiki/Galan_\(Earth-616\)). Currently, however, the players just panicked, screamed, or stared in shock.

Peter himself was rooted where he stood, overwhelmed with all that was happening. Logically, he understood it was all a game, but his senses were convinced otherwise. His brain had no problem telling him that fear was the only emotion available as a response to the circumstances.

“Attention players,” the voice boomed, causing the leaves on the trees to rustle. “Welcome to my world.”

“His world?” Johnny muttered. “As in the game creator?”

“My name is Martin Goodman. As of this moment, I am the only person who can control this world.”

Johnny cursed, which didn’t help Peter’s anxiety. People around them began talking about how Martin Goodman was the person who had created Marvel Online, and how he had developed NerveGear and the gaming system alongside Japanese creator Akihiko Kayaba. Peter had only been vaguely aware of that, more interested in the game than the boring developmental news surrounding it.

“I am sure you have noticed by now,” Galactus continued, loud enough to be heard no matter who was talking. “The log out button is missing from the main menu, but this is not a defect of the game. It is a feature of Marvel Online.”

“A feature?” someone behind Peter asked, echoing his thoughts.

“He’s crazy!” Johnny hissed.

“You cannot log out of Marvel Online, and no one on the outside can shut down or remove the NerveGear. Should this be attempted, the microwave transmitter inside the NerveGear will amplify its output until the brain is destroyed.”

Everyone began talking at once, some were upset while others scoffed at the scene, disbelieving the theatrics. Peter looked over at Johnny. “Can it do that?”

“NerveGear uses microwaves to interrupt brainwaves and transfer commands to the system. If the safety was disabled, it would nuke us like a hotpocket.”

“B-but… They could just cut the power, right?”

Johnny shook his head, fists clenched and shaking. “There’s a battery backup for storage safety. It can last a few days without hooking up to a power source and still be able to run the game. It’s enough to power the watts needed to kill a person.”

“But why?” Peter asked, pointlessly echoing the words of those around him.

After pausing long enough to let people adjust to the news, Galactus continued. “Unfortunately, several players’ friends and families have ignored this warning and have attempted to remove the NerveGear. As a result, 327 players are gone forever, from both here and the real world.”

Peter was going to be sick.

Floating screens with articles and news broadcasts popped up around Galactus at various angles, showing a continuous feed of panic and public warnings. “As you can see, news organizations across the world are reporting all of this, including the deaths.”

There was a woman on one of the screens, collapsed in front of a hospital and sobbing. She was surrounded by other panicked faces, all of them shouting at harried nurses surrounding stretchers. Another screen was flashing a warning over a picture of the NerveGear helmet, scrolling text informing people to not remove it.

“We can now assume that the danger of your NerveGear being removed is minimal,” Galactus said this as if it was somehow a reassurance. “I hope this will help you to relax and focus only on the game.”

“Is he serious?” someone shouted, furious at what they were all witnessing.

“This is just a joke, right?” someone else asked, voice tremulous.

“I want you to remember this clearly,” Galactus boomed, and the trees swayed from the powerful rumble of his voice. “There is no longer any method to revive someone in this game. If your hit points drop to zero, your avatar will be forever lost, and simultaneously, the NerveGear will destroy your brain.”

A collective hush fell over everyone as they took that in. Was this their reality now? To die in the game meant dying in real life? Half the point of gaming was being able to try again and again without consequence. What was the purpose of all this?

“There is only one means of escape,” Galactus declared. He paused for emphasis, ensuring he had the rapt attention of everyone gathered, as if anyone could look away at this point. “You must complete the game.”

“Complete it?” Peter muttered. “But the beta testers barely opened a few neighborhoods. What qualifies as completing it?”

“Why are you doing this?” someone shouted, instigating a trail of such questions being launched at the giant over them. They didn’t get a response.

“This is the end of the tutorial. Be brave, players, and become the heroes you were meant to be.”

Having nothing more to say, Galactus turned and stepped through the rip in space behind him. The edges shrank, sealing the breach, and it closed in on itself until it blipped out of existence, leaving only the deep glow of sunset reflected off of skyscraper windows. There was a moment of quiet disbelief, broken only by the sound of wind ruffling the greenery of the park.

Then, chaos.

People were screaming to be let out, others arguing that it was untrue or impossible. Many people were crying, while others dropped to their knees and stared off into nothingness. Peter himself felt numb. His mind wasn’t quite sure what to think or how to process the events. _ Is this what shock feels like? _

He was abruptly yanked to the side, a firm hand around his arm. Johnny pulled them out of the crowd and back down the park’s trails to the entrance. He didn’t stop until they were alone on the streets, just the NPC traffic around them to see.

“Listen to me,” Johnny said, his eyes intense and voice more serious than Peter had heard all day. “If this is all true, we’re only going to survive if we get as strong as possible as fast as possible. The resources here are limited — materials, items, events, NPC quests. Many of them have a limited number of times they can be activated, some of them are one-offs that provide valuable skills or items.”

“So it’s a race?” Peter asked, his voice dull as his mind tried to take it all in.

“If you send the same criminal to jail three times, you won’t see ‘em again. That’s what I’m talking about. There’s only so much experience points and coin to go around. Only the rats are infinite. Or at least, they were. We don’t know what’s going to happen now.”

“What are we going to do?” That question didn’t sound right to his own ears. It should have been worried or afraid. Instead, it sounded like it came out because it was what he was _ supposed _ to say. But… He should have been _ terrified _of being trapped in a death game.

However, the lingering words still rang through his head. _ Become the hero you were meant to be. _ Why did that appeal to him so much? Because he was dissatisfied with life? Because there was no career he wanted to strive for? Because he was lonely and had felt like a ghost in his own home since he was a child?

It felt petty. _ My parents ignored me, so now I have a death wish. _ But that wasn’t it. Not exactly. It wasn’t about wanting to die. It was about wanting to live a life he cared about for the first time ever.

_ Become the hero you were meant to be. _

“I know where a lot of beginner events are,” Johnny was saying. “We shouldn’t stick to this area directly around Central Park. It’s gonna be picked clean in no time. We can move further out, hit the big spots, and then jump to new areas the moment they open up. There’s a skyscraper event to the east. We can clear all the floors in a week if we do it right.”

Peter looked up and made eye contact at last. “We?”

“Yeah, we! I’m not leaving you behind.”

“But I can’t.”

Johnny looked taken aback. “What do you mean? Don’t give up on me now!” He took a fist full of Peter’s collar and shook.

Peter held his hands up in surrender. “I didn’t mean it that way! I mean, I have friends here. I need to go find them. They didn’t have someone walking them through how to play this game all day. If they’re gonna survive, they _ need _me.”

Johnny’s fingers went slack, sliding through the fabric before falling back to his side. “I get it…” He looked so conflicted, torn between wanting to make sure he survived but not wanting the weight of Peter’s life on his shoulders.

So Peter took that decision away. “You go ahead of us. Get as much experience as you can and then help all us little guys afterwards. You’ll be the real hero of this game.” Peter grinned. “I’ll be okay. You made sure of it.”

For a while longer, Johnny hesitated, but it was obvious he wouldn’t be able to just stick around — not when other beta testers would be going after those same spots in order to power level. Cursing, Johnny pulled up his player menu and started pressing buttons.

Friend Request: Johnny Storm

Accept Decline

Peter grinned as he pressed the accept button. “I’ll send you updates to let you know we’re okay. You should do the same.”

“Fuck messages,” Johnny snapped. “If you’re ever in trouble, call me. Got that?”

“Promise.”

“Good.” He huffed and ran an anxious hand through his bright hair. “Form a team with your friends the minute you get to level five. Teams have a lot of advantages. It’ll keep you safe.”

“Got it.”

“In the meantime, make sure you all friend each other, otherwise you won’t be able to call or keep track of health bars at a distance.”

“I will.”

“Damn it to hell, this whole thing is fucking crazy.” Johnny yanked Peter into a hug. “Stay alive.”

“You, too,” Peter said, squeezing tight. It may have been only one day, but he knew for a fact this would be one of the most important friendships he’d ever have. Hell, it already was.

Yet another thing he was lacking back in the real world.

Peter watched Johnny run off into the crowded streets of New York City. He stood there for some time after, taking in the world around him — his new home for who knew how long. Try as he might, he couldn’t hate it. The world around him felt alive, full of energy and filled with potential. Who would he become here?

_ Become the hero you were meant to be. _

Turning around, Peter jogged back to Central Park to find his friends. His first act as a hero would be to teach them how to fight. Together, they would survive. Together, they would build a new life in this comic book world.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In SAO, there was also a mirror thing where everyone was given a mirror, and it changed their appearance into what they looked like irl. Obviously, I skipped that. Also, everyone’s irl names are different than their secret identities, and no, I’m not going to mention anyone’s irl names. Mostly because I’m bad at names and it’s not essential to the plot. So I suggest not holding your breath on finding out what Peter’s real name is. lol
> 
> I picked Galactus because he’s the most powerful character in Marvel, even though I hate his [helmet](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/db/fd/da/dbfdda0789c898c4e44419bd40c324a9.jpg). 
> 
> For those of you that have watched SAO: What was a plot thread in regards to world-building that you wished had been better explored?
> 
> For those of you that have not watched SAO: What are you looking forward to seeing most in this fic?


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's to hoping I can keep up this writing pace.
> 
> Also, for a person who's never been to NYC, I sure am writing a lot of details about it. I'm linking to all of my locations, though, if you're curious about what it looks like!

06/2024

Peter yawned, arms stretched high over his head as he leaned back against the base of the [Harriet Tubman Memoria](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harriet_Tubman_Memorial_\(New_York_City\))l statue. Behind him, a woman was tossing seeds out for the pigeons. She hummed to herself as she did so, her movements repetitive, clothing plain, and no player icon to be seen. He did his best to portray the stiff and looping actions of an NPC himself, hidden as he was in his secret identity: Peter Parker.

“You’re still a bad actor, you know that?” the woman, [Mockingbird](https://marvel.fandom.com/wiki/Barbara_Morse_\(Earth-616\)), asked. She sounded amused.

“I’m a bit out of practice,” Peter admitted.

“You’ve been busy.” Mockingbird would know. She knew everything since that was an information broker’s job.

Information brokers had popped up not long after the game started. They collected everything useful from various beta testers and started out distributing gameplay guides. Afterwards, brokers progressed to tactics needed to fight Bosses or the steps required to complete certain quests. When the player killing started, details on heroes and their actions became highly sought after.

A team formed not long after that by the name of SHIELD. They specialized in gathering intel and then expanded to using it for their own means. They weren’t a  _ bad  _ group and often did their best to help players as a whole, but they tended to use their valuable information as leverage to achieve their goals. Mockingbird was part of their group, but she also worked as a free agent under their noses.

Peter was lucky to have friended her before she joined SHIELD’s team.

“I have a request.” Peter decided to just get right to the point. “Do you know anything about a player named Deadpool?”

She hummed to herself, fingers flicking the barest amounts over a player screen he couldn’t see as she continued tossing more seed to the birds. “I don’t have anything compiled already, and what little is coming up shows discrepancies between that name being associated with a player or an event character.”

Peter frowned. “He showed up at the end of the Boss battle and got the kill bonus. Definitely had a player icon over his head.” The memory of the glitch over Deadpool’s name popped into his mind once again. It was driving him crazy thinking about what it meant, if it meant anything at all.

“I’ll look into it and send you a full report. You can mail me the money.”

“I appreciate it.” Peter glanced around him, noting the players who still lived in the Harlem neighborhood. It was one of the first to be opened up after the game launched. There were still plenty of low-level heroes walking around, playing it safe in a zone that had long been cleared of all available quests and enemies.

“There will be another Player’s Safety Association Meeting soon, open to everyone.” A pigeon landed on Mockingbird’s shoulder. At least digital pigeons didn’t poop. “The announcement should go out tomorrow.”

“I’m sure.” That was to be expected. Now that Bosses were traveling, they needed to revisit the decision that was made at the last meeting.

“I would recommend attending,” Mockingbird hinted.

“I’m sure SHIELD will be there to gather all the details.”

“Of course, but considering the topic, everyone should be prepared to discuss what’s going to happen next.”

“You think this is the game’s way of forcing us to continue playing?” Peter asked. It was likely a question that sat at the back of everyone’s mind after hearing about The Lizard.

Mockingbird dusted off her hands and smiled at the pigeons still fluttering around her. “That I can’t answer. I only deal in facts, not guesswork.”

Peter pushed away from the statue and shoved his hands into his pockets. “Thanks for your help.”

“Thanks for your business,” she returned.

They went their separate ways.

~*~

Two months ago, the Player’s Safety Association Meeting had come to an agreement. The push on the front lines would stop, and there would be no further Boss battles. The decision had been made after the fight to open the Financial District. The Boss circle had been activated, but it had also traveled, with the Boss in the center of it the entire time. That meant players trying to avoid the fight had been brought into it unprepared.

There had been four casualties that day. It was agreed upon that because Boss fights were becoming unpredictable, they would no longer happen. Tony Stark had heavily opposed this. His secret identity was common knowledge — everyone knew he was Iron Man, co-head of the biggest team in the game: The Avengers. He insisted that completion of the game was their best chance at release from it.

However, many argued that it would be safer to wait until the outside world came up with a solution. Surely, they would eventually be able to free the trapped players. Technology advanced every day, so it was simply a matter of waiting it out. Or so they thought.

The Lizard changed things. If players refused to continue, the game had proven that it would force the issue. The ban on Boss battles needed to be re-addressed.

The Player’s Safety Association Meeting would be held where it always was, in the [Grand Lodge Room](http://www.masonichallnyc.org/venues/grand-lodge-room-theater) at the Masonic Hall. It was a giant venue, all reds and golds and intricate designs, easily fitting 1000+ people, though they had never filled the room to capacity. For a variety of reasons, most players chose not to attend, leaving the decisions in the hands of others. SHIELD would issue a statement about the proceedings and choices made afterwards. They would also enforce whatever the players came to an agreement on. As SHIELD was not a team most wanted to cross, rule-breaking among the other players wasn’t much of an issue.

Peter knew that going to the meeting was important. All of the meetings had been important, if he were being honest with himself. However, he usually didn’t attend. That was because a certain person would always be there. After all, he was the biggest voice of opposition against the Boss battles.

“We are playing into Martin Goodman’s hands if we bow our heads now and continue to let him murder us one by one,” Harry Osborn said from his place atop the raised platform at the head of the room. Beside him stood a frowning Tony Stark. As two of the richest players in the game, they held a lot of influence, and thus, controlled the topics of discussion.

“Now that we know Bosses are not locked to their original spawn areas, we can plan for that,” Tony returned. “However, we cannot plan for random triggers like what just happened. We were lucky that nobody died. We won’t be so lucky next time.”

Harry’s jaw clenched in that way he did when trying to control his temper. “We cannot predict what will come next. If the Boss circle grows to encompass multiple neighborhoods, or even all of Manhattan, then the death toll could be beyond what any of us are prepared for. If we continue to be broken by the loss of those we care about, we will be unable to continue fighting. This is all a mind game!”

“For better or worse, this is our reality.” Tony locked eyes with a few people in the crowd he knew craved the adrenaline and purpose of a fight. “We cannot stand by and have no say in it. If the area of effect becomes so great, we should work now to form a plan against it.”

“And what plan would you propose?” someone from the audience shouted.

Tony pushed his shoulders back, radiating confidence. “We make use of the new player accessible docks opened in the Financial District and travel to Staten Island. That area should be heavy in homes,  _ nice  _ homes, with yards and more room than anywhere else in New York City. If we have a large group, we could clear the entire area, purchase all of the property, and turn the entire island into a safe zone.”

“And I suppose The Avengers would be leading the charge and thus profiting the most,” Harry challenged.

Tony shook his head. “We would invite any team that wished to join, any solo players, or any players who wish to fight on the front lines even if they are the only member of their team willing to. I propose that 50% of all coins and items gained goes towards funding the purchase of the island.”

“And it will be purchased under your name,” someone hidden in the crowd snarked.

That didn’t bother Tony. He stuck his nose in the air. “I own half of Manhattan at this point, and those areas are low in crime. If you have any evidence of actual complaints from my tenants, I’d be happy to address them. Anyone who wishes to rent or purchase at in-game pricing has most of Queens available to them.”

The crowd noise rose as people either agreed with or complained about how Tony had worked the system. He had started purchasing early, before it became common knowledge that it was possible. If he had any ulterior motives for his buying spree, it was covered up by the fact that he rented out decent apartments for a fraction of the price that the game would for those players who were barely making enough coin to survive.

[Reed Richards](https://marvel.fandom.com/wiki/Reed_Richards_\(Earth-616\)) stood up. “Speaking of crime…” The murmurs died down. “Player killing has escalated since the ban on Boss battles was implemented. Without a purpose and hope of being released from the game,  _ those  _ teams gain more members. What is the point of saving lives from the game when players are taking them instead?”

That caused an eruption of arguments. The PK teams preached that there was no guarantee that death in the game killed you in the real world. It was possible that dying released them from the game and that fear was the only thing keeping them trapped. However, if that were true, then the people with the highest kill count would have committed suicide long ago.

No, it was an excuse to do what they want and steal a player’s items without consequences. Tony himself had set up prison-like rooms in some of the buildings he purchased. Any players caught committing crimes in his neighborhoods were locked away and banned from having access to the door inside a room that was an immortal object. It was a scarily efficient system, which was why low-level players lived in his apartments.

“We should be focusing inwards!” Harry raised his voice above the crowd. “There are other ways to interact with this game, utilizing daily activities to keep our lives fulfilled. If we focus on the crafting and engineering programs, and setting up a policing force for players, then we won’t have to worry about  _ any  _ deaths, be they from Bosses or players.”

The crowd was lively now and shouted overlapping responses.

“Where do you think most crafting materials come from? Do they just rain from the sky? No! We need quests and battles to acquire them.”

“If we don’t push to boost our levels, then we won’t survive more wandering Bosses!”

“I don’t want Tony owning my ass!”

“I played video games to escape the pigs, not create more to oppress me! Fuck your police force, you megalomaniac!”

“A pottery class isn’t going to stop those psychos from killing more of us!”

“What about the rise of thefts in the safe zones?”

“Fighting Bosses doesn’t mean player crimes will stop.”

Peter had unfortunately seen some of the player crimes in safe zones. If a person fell asleep, it wasn’t easy to wake them up. They wouldn’t register pain or sensation, and only sometimes responded to sound. It wasn’t like real life. This meant someone could manipulate the sleeping person’s hand to activate their player menu.

It had resulted in players losing items, being undressed, and accepting duels all while they continued to sleep. It had been Black Cat that first informed Peter of the issue. She didn’t trust people easily, and he understood better why after that.

_ “In game or out, men are pigs,” she sneered. _

_ “Then why ask me for my help?” Peter looked over at her skin-tight outfit that she used to lure in the perverts prior to threatening their lives. He was absolutely certain that she had murdered a few in the past, but it had at least been long enough that her icon had returned to green. _

_ “Because sometimes there is information that only a man can gather from these assholes, so I need someone I can trust.” _

_ “You trust me?” _

_ Her eyes went distant in the way people’s always did when remembering the world before getting stuck in Marvel Online. “You remember that campaign? Asking men to think about if it happened to their own sisters, mothers, or daughters?” _

_ “Yes.” _

_ “You stopped a player from assaulting an NPC, someone who isn’t even real. You are more concerned by the crime itself than who it is happening to.  _ That  _ is what I trust.” _

It had been a long time since he’d helped her on that mission. She’d almost killed the man that had been stripping sleeping women in the parks. Peter had only barely managed to stop her. That man was locked up in one of Tony’s jails. Black Cat was still angry with Peter over allowing the pervert to live, but at least she still spoke to him civilly now and again.

Captain America stood up and banged against his shield to call for silence. He was the only person in the room allowed to wear his hero outfit inside the Masonic Hall as he was acting as mediator for the room. He was likely the only person in the game that people would accept for such a role. If he had opinions or chose sides, he rarely voiced them publicly. He let Tony handle the brunt of people’s backlash to any decisions The Avengers made.

“As it seems everyone has offered their opinions, we will put the matter of the Boss battles to a vote,” Cap announced. “We will move on to other concerns.”

After that, the meeting dragged on as it normally did, with everyone bringing up various issues — some important, others very much not. People came and went, but almost everyone stopped by the voting booth. Well, it was actually a vending machine just outside the door with only two options that cost a single coin. It was locked to dispense an item to a player once a day, thus allowing a fair voting system that could be tallied by Captain America once the meeting concluded.

Peter made himself stay through the entire meeting, listening with half a mind to problems people were bringing up. He debated if he should even vote. He didn’t know what the right decision was. He would find a way to survive, whatever the outcome. Besides, he had his hands full enough in Queens. Not all the neighborhoods there had been unlocked. If the Bosses there began to travel…

“Someone burned down a game event!” a man in the back corner of the room shouted. “We should be investigating that! It’s unnatural!”

“That’s not possible,” another player dismissed. “Some events have limited runs. Deal with it.”

A woman stood up that Peter recognized. [Sarah](https://marvel.fandom.com/wiki/Marrow_\(Sarah\)_\(Earth-616\)) something… He’d fought with her during a Boss raid in the past, and she didn’t mind sharing her secret identity, likely because it was hard to conceal. She had paid extra for the character mod pack and turned her avatar’s skin and hair pink. Even out of her superhero costume, she was recognizable.

“He’s talking about the Weapon X event,” Sarah announced to those gathered. She stood on the ground floor, near the center of the room, and the skylights overhead made her glow a pale rose color. “It was an event only a few of us betas came across when testing the game.”

Peter hummed to himself. There was a time when being known as a beta tester caused a lot of strife. Things had changed a lot in the past year and half. Of course, there were still people who held old grudges, but Peter would forever be grateful to the betas. After all, if it hadn’t been for Johnny helping out that first day in the game, and the other betas who offered their knowledge for the gamer guides, Peter may not have survived as long as he had.

Sarah continued to explain. “Entering Weapon X puts you through a lot of shit, but it boosts all of your stats. I gained five levels in a few days when I did it.”

“Yeah, yeah!” The guy in the back looked excited. “And you were supposed to get cool aesthetics from it.”

“Sure.” Sarah frowned as she waved at the bone protrusions on her face and arms. “It wasn’t like the beta test, though. You could feel pain there — and not just the kind you make up in your head. It was a nightmare, which is why people stopped going. Once you’re in, you can’t get out until you complete it.”

A lot of things like that had happened. Little changes here and there in the game were made to hinder the beta testers. It had resulted in more than one death. This Weapon X Event sounded horrifying, but it wasn’t the worst of it. Obviously, there were still players who felt it was worth the risk in order to gain a quick level boost.

“Then why are we worried about it?” Harry asked. A few of the other players muttered to themselves in agreement.

“Because it blew up!” the guy complaining tossed his hands in the air. He looked to Sarah for help.

“Weapon X was classified as a continuous event,” Sarah agreed. Her eyebrows furrowed. “A continuous event creates buildings the same as NPC owned areas or safe zones.”

“You can’t burn down an immortal object,” Tony argued. “It should respawn.”

“It’s been over a month,” Sarah replied. “I’ve seen it. It’s nothing but a pile of rubble and ash, and the NPCs running the event aren’t respawning.”

“That’s impossible,” Harry snapped, but his features were tight. He was afraid. The game was changing, and not knowing the rules made things dangerous for everyone.

The gathered crowd started talking all at once, theorizing what it meant, wondering if it was possible, and debating if it was a lie or mistake. Before it could get too out of hand, Nick Fury stood up and cleared his throat, gaining the attention of everyone in an instant. He had that kind of effect.

“SHIELD will investigate the matter and issue a public report. At the very least, one less event doesn’t hurt us as a whole.”

Everyone accepted that, but it was obvious that the information left all in attendance feeling unsettled. The rest of the meeting continued without incident. Peter felt exhausted by the time he was able to leave. He just wanted to hurry home and take a nap…

The crowd was slow to disperse, all of them casting their vote on the way out the door. Peter had almost made his escape when a familiar voice froze him in his tracks. “You actually showed up.”

It took a lot to force his body to turn around rather than run. His stomach was in knots, and his lips felt numb as he came face to face with the last person he wanted to see. “Harry.”

“Sharing information and learning about rising problems helps keep people safe.“ Peter looked away and said nothing, so Harry continued. “You were there during the Boss battle?”

“Yes.”

“I heard there were no casualties. Is that true?”

Peter heaved a sigh. Harry and Tony had been at odds since the meetings started, which had gradually caused Harry to become paranoid of anything Tony said or did. “Tony didn’t lie. People joined randomly throughout the fight, but we had a good thirty people by the end, which helped us survive. It was a close call, though.”

“And the kids?”

“They’re fine.”

“They almost died. They’re not fine.” Harry frowned in a way that made Peter want to shrink in on himself. “Kids shouldn’t have to deal with any of this.”

“I don’t know what you want from me, Harry.” Peter finally looked up into the hard, cold eyes of the person he once called his best friend.

“I want you to make the right choice.”

Harry turned and walked away, taking his place at the vending machine to cast his vote. Peter took a moment to relearn how to breathe before pulling leaden feet towards the door. He stopped at the machine and stared at it, watched as other people came and went, blocking his view from whatever vote they cast.

Eventually, he was alone in the vast conference hall, staring at the unassuming vending machine in front of him that flashed the prices of the two items inside. He still didn’t know what the right choice was, and his indecision was heavily influenced by guilt from too many memories. Not casting a vote would be just as much of a sin in Harry’s mind as choosing the opposing side.

“Well,” Peter whispered. “You can’t hate me more than you already do.”

Defeated, he turned away and headed home.

~*~

“Aunt May, I’m back!” Peter shuffled down the hall, yawning.

“You sound exhausted,” was the reply from the back of the house.

“I am.” Peter walked into the kitchen and was surrounded by the smell of pie. Aunt May stood at the stove, cooking. It looked delicious. He pecked her on the cheek before dropping into his seat at the table. “You got enough food to share?”

She smirked. “Well, I can’t let you starve, can I?”

Peter watched her with a content smile as she tutted over the pots on the stove. She tapped them with her ladle, and they pixelated before reforming into a finished product. Pulling two bowls from the cabinets above her, she filled them and set them on the table with a flourish. A basket of bread was already there, a container of butter beside it.

“Tell me how it is,” Aunt May insisted, as she always did. She sat across from Peter, grinning in excitement.

Peter groaned over his first spoonful, but he knew even before looking that it would taste amazing. Her food always was. “A masterpiece.”

“Flatterer,” she said, waving her spoon and setting them both to grinning.

Aunt May always made a bad day better. She was the parental figure he’d always wanted, the one Disney channel said he should have had. Warm, loving, caring, and compassionate, she was there no matter what and always knew the right thing to say. He’d be dead without her, that was a fact.

“Did you run into trouble today?” she asked, observant and sympathetic.

“You could call it that…” Peter tapped the lid of the oval container before tipping it over his bread. Butter spilled out of it with a shimmer of light. “I talked to Harry.”

“Oh, Peter.” She reached across the short table and brushed his messy bangs back from his eyes. “I hope one day you two can be friends again.”

Peter swallowed down his emotions and chewed on the bread as an excuse not to respond. Aunt May didn’t push. Instead, she told him tales about what the neighbors had been up to and the new flowers she was working on. It made the world sound like a simple, peaceful place. Peter never appreciated how much he needed that at the end of the day to help remind him that not everything was a fight for survival.

Aunt May knew, but that was no surprise. Reading, understanding, and responding to players’ emotions was written into her code.

The pie was ready in time for dessert. It was  _ also  _ the best thing he’d ever tasted. Aunt May had really gone above and beyond when she maxed out her cooking skill. It had been a risky move on her part, changing so much of her programming that fateful day, but nothing had come of it. Peter supposed that keeping an eye on a random AI was at the bottom of Goodman’s priority list when playing god over Marvel Online.

“You know, I hear poor Anna’s having difficulties with her landlord,” Aunt May said as she cleaned up.

“Oh? I’ll drop by and ask her about it tomorrow.”

“Make sure you don’t get into any trouble!” she scolded.

Peter grinned. “Who me? Never.”

She swatted at him, but he danced out of the way with a laugh. They spent some time afterward playing a board game before Aunt May shooed a yawning Peter upstairs and into bed. He had just changed into pajamas and laid down when his message notifications pinged. Mockingbird had sent him the file she collected on Deadpool.

Lifting a hand over his head, he called up the player menu and opened his inbox. He scrolled through the report, speed reading to get the overall details of it. The start of the report contained indications of the name Deadpool being associated with an NPC in a level boost event called…

“Weapon X,” Peter whispered, surprised to see it there on the display. Other than the NPC being reported as a talkative patient involved with the backstory surrounding the event, there wasn’t a lot of further information.

As for the  _ player  _ Deadpool, his records were nonexistent until about two months ago. Being a new player was impossible, so he must have changed his identity, which would have taken a lot of effort. It assumed that Deadpool chose a new hero name, outfit, skills, and weapons all at once, and had nobody on his friend list to be notified of the change. What would spur a person to go through all that? And was the name similarity to the NPC by design or coincidence?

There was a list of heroes attached that could have potentially been who Deadpool was prior to the switch. They were all people that had gone missing but were yet to be confirmed as dead. Some of them were months old, and with Deadpool’s skill level, Peter didn’t think he could have just stayed hidden that entire time and not been seen out somewhere gaining experience.

Unless he’d been in an event the entire time? Peter thought about the Weapon X issue and how it might be connected to Deadpool. If a person ran through an event over and over, would the game shut it down to prevent further cheating? Of course, most events had a limit per player to prevent that. Peter didn’t know enough about the Weapon X event to guess if unlimited runs had been a possibility. Maybe he’d ask Sarah about it later, if he could track her down…

And then something disturbing caught Peter’s eye. According to players that had interacted with Deadpool, he was more than just a player killer. He was offering to kill people in exchange for money. The cost was steep, but some players had taken him up on it. He didn’t appear to have any standards. He’d kill anyone for any reason if the money was there.

Just from the hits confirmed, Deadpool had made a lot of money, and as long as his victim wasn’t married in the game, any items the player had equipped would go to him. So with money and items taken care of, he only needed to worry about farming the easy quests for experience or crafting materials.

So why show up at the Boss fight? Even with the killshot bonus, the experience earned would be something he could easily make within a day or two. He didn’t need the money, and he could buy any Boss exclusive items he wanted. Or kill for them. Why risk his life, and risk angering so many players, for a return that wasn’t worth it?

_ Maybe he’s one of those adrenaline junkies bored with NPC quests. Or maybe he was just passing through and saw an opportunity for easy EXP. _ To which his mind replied,  _ Just passing through a Boss battle? Do you hear yourself? _

Peter sighed and closed the screen. There was no point obsessing over it. Deadpool was a mystery that Peter didn’t need to solve. It was likely he’d never see the guy again. If he did, it was best to avoid an encounter. But if Deadpool was trying to kill someone…

Well, Peter would stop it. That was all there was to it.

Rolling over, Peter curled up under the covers and tried to get some sleep. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry for how little Deadpool there's been so far in this story. He's just such a mystery~ I promise we'll see more of him next chapter! lol And man, I am excited to hear what you guys think about Deadpool with all this new info! hehe


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In SAO (and a lot of video game animes) items and skills usually have a ranking system on an A-F grade scale, with A being the best. However, if something is super great/rare/difficult to acquire, then it’s S grade. I dunno why S is better than A, but in keeping to the rules of this verse, I will be referencing that in this chapter.

07/2024

Peter was sitting atop a building in full Spider-man gear, kicking his feet from where they dangled over the ledge. He was humming to himself — an earworm that had been persistent all day. Music options were limited in the game, and none of the choices had been hits on the radio. Still, some people did their best to find ways to recreate popular songs and perform them in the parks. Everyone appreciated the efforts of those that went through so much work.

However, the song stuck in Peter’s head was obscure and of his own guilty pleasure music tastes, which meant it was driving him crazy. He couldn’t play the song and couldn’t look up all the lyrics, so all he could do was hum and occasionally mutter what few words he knew. It was annoying as hell.

Though sometimes it made him reflect on the world around him. There he was, trapped in a fake world, knowing that death could come for him at any time, and his biggest concern was half a song looping in his head. Life was strange like that.

“_Because we do what we gotta do real [well](https://youtu.be/k0g-VuefzuU)_,” Peter mumbled the lyrics as he scrolled through his inventory, marking things to sell later. His _spidey sense _ tingled, and he flinched before turning to look behind him.

“You know those are the wrong lyrics, right?” Black Cat asked as she walked across the rooftop towards him.

Peter shrugged. “Nobody can understand lyrics anyways.”

“If you say so.” She bent over his shoulder in order to see his player menu and started tapping buttons.

“Hey!”

“Aha! I knew you had one.” She pulled something from his inventory and caught it when it formed in front of him.

“That’s my lunch!”

“It’s nine at night,” she said, sitting beside him and pulling the lid off his meal. “Besides, it’s what you deserve for not telling me where you get this stuff.” He opened his mouth to argue, but she cut him off. “Don’t lie. I know your cooking skills are B-level and this has S-class ingredients in it.”

Peter tried not to pout as Black Cat dug into his szechuan chicken stir-fry with gusto. It wasn’t like he could just admit to having his lunches packed by an AI. He doubted even Cat would take that well. People were sensitive about the concept of cheating in a game with such high stakes, whether it was a valid argument or not. It was the reason beta testers had had it so rough those first few months when players were looking for an outlet for their anger.

“I’m surprised you’re not on that boat to Staten Island,” Black Cat said between mouthfuls.

Tony had won the vote, and The Avengers had immediately put together a raid party and formed a plan. There were more players willing to fight than expected, some showing up at Tony’s doorstep before he could even recruit them. Then again, people had been sitting around doing nothing but suffering from the anxiety of the unknown since the decision to stop the Boss battles. Perhaps it made sense that there were so many volunteers ready to start fighting again.

Naturally, Harry was livid. He had made an announcement about his decision to find a new method of protecting players. Since then, he’d been out of the public eye, doing who knew what.

“I don’t always stick to the front lines, you know.” Peter maintained his indecisive stance by hiding from both sides of the issue. Besides, he was a solo player, so he had no team to pressure him into joining Boss raids if he didn’t feel like it. Of course, Iron Man pressured Peter enough to make up for it. That man was always looking for high ranking players to join his team.

“I hear there are Bosses in the water. The ferry was attacked first thing.”

“Yeah, it’s probably going to take them a while to secure the island.”

“Exactly, and Queens isn’t cleared,” Black Cat stated the obvious, waving at the city before them with her fork. “If you trigger something, backup will be a long time coming.”

“I’ll just leave the Boss circle and have it reset.” Peter shrugged. “I know how to be careful. I’m fine. Though, I’m pretty sure you’re not here just to give me a safety lecture.”

He didn’t mention that he was certain she still held a grudge against him. She wasn’t acting like it, nor did she mention the guy she didn’t get to kill, so Peter didn’t bring it up. Her player icon was green, so Peter hoped that meant her anger was under control.

“I have something I’m looking into,” she admitted, gazing at the city lights along the skyline. “I need an insider.”

Peter hated it when she said things like that. He didn’t enjoy delving into the parts of humanity he didn’t want to know existed. He would still go. Of course he would. The world wasn’t as nice of a place as his ignorance wanted it to be, but it was still hard. He wasn’t sure how Black Cat stayed sane considering she constantly sought out such evils.

But then, someone had to find the problems in order for them to be fixed.

“There’s a group going around Harlem and offering deals to low-level players who are too scared to fight. They promise level boosts, items, and free lodging with a meal every day.”

“Sounds like the PK teams,” Peter said, voice grim.

“Exactly. None of those recruited have died, as far as I can tell, but the trade-off is that they work at this underground club.”

“What kind of club?”

“Only the sexy avatars are getting recruited. Wanna take a guess?”

“Shit.”

Peter had heard rumors that such places existed, but he didn’t fully understand the appeal. The avatars in the game couldn’t be undressed, not completely. They could remove clothes down to their underwear — though the plain white underwear could be traded out for even skimpier styles — but there were no private areas shown. Which also meant there wasn’t anything there to touch. Softcore strip clubs just sounded like an exercise in sexual frustration.

“There are plenty of people who are bored, scared, and looking for an outlet, and then there are those willing to exploit that. Violence and sex are always at the top of the list,” Black Cat said, voice grave.

He also didn’t like how Cat could force him to self-reflect without even meaning to. Peter had been suffering in monotony and trepidation over his future in the real world. He had turned to media as an outlet most of his life. A comic book world where he could be a hero — a hero who beat up criminals and killed powerful enemies — was what he chose as his escape.

But a game wasn’t supposed to be real.

He knew that his desire to live the fantasy of violence didn’t make him a bad person, but seeing how others used the game to excuse their actions left a feeling of guilt hovering over him. Where was the line that others crossed? Would he step on it one day? Would he even realize it when he did?

His shoulder was slugged hard enough for him to lose ten hit points. They bounced back in under a second thanks to his regeneration. Still, he rubbed his arm and scowled under his mask at Black Cat. “Is that how you thank someone for a meal?”

“You’re thinking too much,” she said as the empty bowl of stir-fry shattered and disappeared.

“It’s your fault,” he muttered.

“We both bought this game to fight pixels and code. We didn’t buy it to harm and manipulate people.”

“I know that.” It was uncomfortable how well she could read him at times. Perhaps because they were too alike in the way they obsessed over their own actions and the actions of others. “So what do you need me to do?”

She typed out a message and sent it to him. It contained a location and name of the establishment along with the person who ran it.

“[Hellfire Club](https://marvel.fandom.com/wiki/Hellfire_Club_\(Earth-616\)),” Peter read aloud. “What a name.”

“So is [The White Queen](https://marvel.fandom.com/wiki/Emma_Frost_\(Earth-616\)),” Cat replied, referencing the person who currently ran the club. “A man named [Warpath](https://marvel.fandom.com/wiki/James_Proudstar_\(Earth-616\)) accompanies any low-level player that leaves the club and acts as her personal bodyguard inside. Heard of him?”

“No. Does he live up to his name?”

“According to the reports prior to him being hired at the club.”

“Great,” Peter deadpanned. “So I just have to find a way into the club without getting attacked by this guy.”

“Start with recon.” Cat dismissed his concerns. “Just get in, check out how it runs, and talk to the players that work there if you can. We need a better idea of how they’re treated and, if they’re trapped, how they’re being kept there. We can form a plan to get them out afterwards.”

“And if they don’t want to leave?” Peter asked.

“We can’t help it if they’re too scared to leave, but there are better solutions than stripping. Make sure they know about their options.”

Peter wasn’t sure how much that would help. If they believed that there was a better way, then they probably would have done that prior to getting recruited. Still, once entering the club, it sounded difficult to leave it. Any that regretted their choice should have an out. That was where Black Cat stepped in — and, incidentally, Spider-man.

“There’s a vetting process, so it may take you a while to get in.” She stood up and propped hands on her hips, staring out over the city lights. Since there weren’t as many players in Queens, there were no booms of powers or destruction caused by fights. It was almost peaceful if one became used to the constant din of traffic noise.

“I’ll keep you posted,” Peter promised.

“And I’ll send you anything useful I find in the meantime.” She paused for a long moment, eyes firmly facing forward, before she spoke again, her voice carefully reserved. “Thank you.”

“Anytime,” Peter replied, sincerely.

“Don’t make promises that you hate keeping.” With that, she sauntered off, leaping gracefully between rooftops until she faded from sight.

Peter sighed and rubbed the back of his neck. _ I’ll work on it first thing in the morning, I suppose. _ Though he wasn’t sure where to even start. Well, in the meantime…

He pulled his player menu back up and scrolled his inventory. “Where are yooou… There!” He clicked on the item and caught Aunt May’s chocolatey deluxe donut as it formed in front of him. At least Cat hadn’t taken off with his desert! He tapped the base of his mask, causing the bottom half to fade away so he could eat.

Humming happily, he opened his mouth to take a bite— 

His _spidey sense _ tingled a warning that someone was nearby a second before a voice spoke.

“You know, that flashing message means you have a Mantle ready to activate.”

Peter was on his feet in an instant, whirling around to find himself face to face with none other than Deadpool. _ Why is he here? _ “Um…” _ Real articulate, Parker! _

Deadpool walked closer to put them within easy conversation distance, his gait relaxed and confident. “Applying the Mantle to your hero name gives you a unique skill.”

“I know.” Peter closed his player menu, even though Deadpool shouldn’t be able to see it now that they were facing one another. Still, for Deadpool to have been able to see Peter’s screen, getting _ that close _ before _ spidey sense _ could catch him, must have meant his _ stealth _skill was insanely high.

_ What do I do? Should I run now or wait for a better opportunity? Will I have to fight him? _ Peter stood there, frozen with indecision, waiting for an attack at any moment, and holding his donut in the air like an idiot.

“Don’t worry, I won’t judge you for using it, even if they are unfair boosts,” Deadpool continued, talking like they were long-time friends just hanging out. It was in jarring contrast to the array of deadly weapons covering his body. “I mean, look at the wonder duo! _ Invincible _ gives a 600% increase to all armor, and _ Super Soldier _ turns all damage types to physical, which means all Captain Spangle has to do is dump his stats into health and defense. So unfair to the little guy, right?”

“Why do you know the stats of their Mantles?” That wasn’t common knowledge, and there was no guide to look it up. Unless the owners of the unique Mantles themselves revealed the information, not even SHIELD would be able to figure it out. Was Deadpool just guessing?

And there was no way he could know the details of Peter’s Mantle, right? After all, Peter almost never used it and refused to even have it showing on his name whenever other players were around. Surely his secret was safe.

“I know a lot of things.” Deadpool shrugged it off as if it was just a useless bit of trivia. “Like I know you’re looking to get into the Hellfire Club.”

_ Shit. _ Was someone at the club trying to stop Black Cat’s investigation? Was it bad enough that they had to hire Deadpool? “Are you here to kill me?”

“What?” Deadpool appeared stunned, which was easy to see since his mask moved with his expressions. “Nooo, I wouldn’t kill _ you _.” Deadpool placed his hands on his stomach, threw his head back, and laughed. He was insane, and that’s all there was to it.

“I’m not trying to pick a fight with The White Queen,” Peter said, apprehension making his voice as tight as his body was.

Deadpool wheezed as he stopped laughing, wiping away a nonexistent tear. “I’m not here to warn you away, silly. I’m here to _ invite _you!” He flung his arms wide in an excited, welcoming movement that was simultaneously weird and terrifying.

“What?”

“Yeah, yeah!” He grinned, and it stretched his mask in an odd way. “You need a sponsor to get in. I’m offering.”

“Um…” _ Bad idea! Bad idea! This is a trap! _ “Why?”

“I’ve always respected the working ladies — or gentleman, whichever. It’s a legitimate job with a big market to sell, if you know what I mean. But you, my dear naive baby boy, seem to be confused about the whole process. You’re thinking Pretty Woman rather than the foundation of the American West. I’m here to help.”

Wow, the man rambled more than Peter expected, and it was hard to keep up. “So…you…want to show me how the club operates?”

“Let’s go with that. I’d rather get this job done sooner rather than later, so how about tomorrow night?”

“Job?”

“You’re full of one word questions, Webster.” Deadpool snorted. “I just have to shoo the cats off Hellfire’s lawn. Work smarter, not harder, I always say. Seems like the best way to finish this is to show you what a quality establishment that club is. If you're satisfied, you’ll run along back home, yeah?”

So they planned to show Peter that they weren’t locking up their workers and assuming it would stop Black Cat from sticking her nose into their business. That still sounded shady as — well — hell. “And if I find the working conditions to be lacking?”

“Ha! You won’t.” Deadpool preened like he’d already won. “Then I’ll meet you by the Queensboro Bridge tomorrow night. “You don’t have a date already, right?”

“Uh…no.” Peter wanted so badly to sound more intelligent, but he was truly being blindsided by the whole scenario.

“Great! Titties for two, it is.”

“Could you possibly be more crass?” Peter blurted, his mouth getting away from him like it always did when he had no idea what to say.

Deadpool cackled. “Don’t _ tempt _me because you’ll regret how much worse I can get!”

“I believe it,” Peter muttered.

Still laughing, Deadpool walked away, waving one arm over his head. “Toodloo, Webs.”

Deciding to end the conversation as abruptly as it started, Deadpool took a running leap off the side of the building. Peter rushed over to the ledge, convinced that would have taken most, if not all, of Deadpool’s hitpoints (since he was fairly certain the mercenary couldn’t fly), but the strange man was skipping down the street with a full health bar. To say that Peter’s expectations of what his first encounter with Deadpool would be like were subverted would be an understatement.

“What the hell?” Peter whispered into the night air.

He looked over at the donut still clutched in his hand and the timer ticking down its shelf life. He finished it off in a few huge bites, loath to waste it, while deciding it would be best to just head home before he had any more strange encounters. Besides, he needed to get everything ready for his trip tomorrow.

_ I’m going to be walking into a strip club. _ Belatedly, it occurred to him how embarrassing that was. Even in real life, he’d never been to one. His embarrassment triggered the game graphics to color his cheeks red. He reached up and tapped his mask so that it covered all of his face once more.

“Stupid graphics,” Peter muttered to himself as he turned in the direction of Aunt May’s and leaped into the air. “They still have their underwear on,” he scolded himself as he swung through the buildings. “It’s like a Victoria Secret runway. That’s all. They show that on cable. Get over yourself.”

_ I’m going to a strip club with Deadpool. _ Well, that was more of a problem, and he wasn’t sure what to do about it. Agreeing so easily felt like a dumb idea, but there was a good chance that both Black Cat and Peter would be killed if he didn’t play along.

“I guess this is what you call a rock and a hard place.”

And wasn’t that just his kind of luck?

Something brightly colored caught Peter’s attention as he banked around a building. Below him were a few players lounging at a table in front of a cafe. They had a sign set up that said “EVENT RUN” in glowing neon letters. One of them waved at Peter in hopes of him landing to join their party. Another yawned and slouched lower in his chair.

The sight was like a punch to the gut. Aggressive nostalgia, he called it. Though memories of the past were the last thing he needed right now, they flooded him all the same. It felt like a lifetime ago that he’d been in the same situation. Time in Marvel Online traveled so differently… 

Peter continued on his way home, doing what he could to leave the ghosts of his past behind him, like streamers in the wind.

~*~

01/2023

“Tada!” Miles Morales, Peter’s alliteration bro, flipped the sign around to display his creation, chest puffed up in pride. In his defense, making a sign from available materials in the game was a lot harder than the cardboard and sharpie design made it look. “With this, we can let people know we’re looking for others to join our party!”

“It’s very nice,” Gwen praised.

“You’re _ supposed _ to find party members through the _ fucking _internet!” Harry complained, for what was likely the millionth time. He held his costume’s gloves in front of him, scowling at the oblong rip across them caused by their recent overuse. “The fact that this game doesn’t have a community chat is complete bullshit.”

“It’s supposed to be realistic,” Peter said. “Superheroes aren’t checking the forums and picking out a bad guy to hunt down together after dinner.”

“That’s a lie,” Harry argued, stabbing at his gear with a needle to activate the repair function. “If superheroes were real, they would _ totally _use the internet to coordinate.”

“Well, they don’t in the comics, and this is a comic book game.” Peter stuck his tongue out to really round out his argument. Harry rolled his eyes and snorted.

Miles hummed a happy tune as he set his sign up against a tree. They were collected in the park, lounging on the grass and taking a well-deserved break. It had been nothing but grinding the past week to finally get their entire party up to the level they needed to be. Now they were taking time to recover and repair all their damaged items.

“We can subscribe to a bunch of teams and keep an eye on their public announcements,” Miles offered as he opened up his player menu. “That’s sorta like the internet. I’ve already started following a few.”

“Why?” Harry asked, frowning as the graphics gave his newly repaired gloves a shabby looking stitch down the middle. “All the guilds that put out announcements are looking for raid help. We _ just _reached level five. They don’t want us there.”

“_Teams_,” Miles corrected. “They’re called teams in this game.”

“A guild’s a guild. Anyways, if you’re not looking for raids, then it’s pointless to subscribe to anything other than the information broker guilds.”

“We could always go and observe a raid or Boss fight,” Miles said, looking excited. “As long as we stay out of the aggro zone, it’ll be fine.”

“Don’t risk your life for a thrill,” Harry scolded.

“I don’t mean it like that! I mean we could watch how they fight and take notes on strategy.”

“We really do suck at strategy,” Peter conceded.

“We can get that kinda stuff from the information brokers.” Harry shook his head, stubborn in his need to keep everyone safe. He was such a mom friend.

“Maybe we could follow lower level teams so we can meet up for event runs or NPC quests,” Gwen offered, hoping to find a middle ground in order to squash the argument.

“Already on it!” Miles boasted. “I signed up with our team name so we’ll all get notifications in our inboxes.”

“Team Spider?” Gwen asked, cocking an eyebrow.

Miles immediately became flustered. “All the good names were taken! Besides, spiders are cool…”

“You say that like you didn’t become impatient and just typed random words in to see if they were taken.” Harry gave Miles a pointed look. “And now we’re stuck with Team _ Spider_.”

Gwen giggled as Miles pouted around a blush, immediately jumping to the spider’s defense. “Everyone’s afraid of spiders! It’s a cool name!”

“Uh huh, sure,” Harry sassed.

“And it fits us so _ well. _ We’re such a _ fearsome _group!” Gwen doubled over in a fit of giggles.

Miles desperately looked to Peter for help, who provided. “Black Spider fought Batman.”

“See? Thank you! Spiders are _ totally _a comic book thing. People will totally be keeping an eye on our team.”

Gwen snorted, and Harry desperately tried not to burst out laughing as well.

“Speaking of,” Miles plowed on. “I wonder if we have any subscribers yet.”

Harry _ did _laugh then. “We reached level five yesterday. Who would wanna subscribe to a guild that’s barely a day old and full of low-level players?”

“Food delivery!” Mary Jane announced as she plopped down next to Peter and set a pizza box down in the middle of them.

“Ooo, gimme!” Gwen pounced on the offered food.

“Don’t eat it all!” Harry complained as he fought her over a slice.

Miles ignored the food in favor of producing a dramatic gasp. “We have a subscriber!” he crowed, practically vibrating out of his skin in excitement.

“What?” Harry asked around a mouthful of pizza. “Why would anyone subscribe to us?”

Miles wiggled his finger at the small [1] icon and cooed. “Hey there, little subscriber. I love you.”

Mary Jane bumped her shoulder against Peter’s and whispered, “Is that your friend?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Peter shoved food in his mouth and ignored Mary Jane’s knowing smirk.

She was right, however. Johnny had been more than happy to subscribe to make the team happy. He also thought it would be a good idea in case any of them needed help and Peter was unable to contact Johnny directly. Of course, Peter didn’t think such a scenario would ever happen.

The reason they were so far behind everyone else was because they never took risks. They went about things slow and steady, running through quests and low-level events rather than taking on anything potentially dangerous. Other teams hadn’t been so reserved, but all of them had lost at least one member because of it. Harry would never let that happen to them.

Miles nabbed a piece of pizza and held it in the air like a toast. “To our precious subscriber and the best team ever!”

Gwen laughed and tapped her half-eaten slice against his. “Cheers!”

Peter grinned at his friends. He didn’t know what he’d do without them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally! Some Deadpool interaction! Also, is anyone surprised that I jumped straight into a strip club? Nope. Not at all.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m going to mention Angel, but since there’s two in comics and movies, I want to clarify I mean the Angel from the X-men First Class movie (though I’m using her comic look/persona), not Angel from Deadpool.

** 07/2024 **

Finding Deadpool by the Queensboro Bridge was not difficult. Inconspicuous was the last word anyone would choose for the man. He was sitting atop one of the support beams, yelling obscenities at the cars below his swinging feet. Despite the language, he appeared to be _ enjoying _telling all the drivers how terrible they were at driving.

“It’s an algorithm, you know,” Peter couldn’t help but call out to the strange player above his head.

“Excuses, excuses!” Deadpool declared.

To Peter’s utter shock and panic, Deadpool hopped off the beam and dropped the equivalent of two stories onto the sidewalk below, nailing a cliche superhero landing. His health bar took a dive, easily knocking him down to half life. When he stood and stumbled with a groan, his knees were nothing but red, digital mesh, the game’s way of indicating that he’d destroyed his kneecaps.

Peter immediately rushed over, pulling up his user menu to grab a medipack. “You’re lucky that didn’t kill you!”

Deadpool laughed and waved off Peter’s attempts to help. “I have a fast regeneration rate. No need to waste items on me. See?” He pointed to his health bar that was rapidly climbing its way back into the green. Peter relaxed a little.

“If you say so… Just don’t do anything unnecessary.”

“Aw, you’re so cute, worrying about little ol’ me.”

Peter kept his mouth shut. Sure, he probably shouldn’t be worrying about a mercenary, especially one as dangerous and crazed as Deadpool, especially since he was being _ targeted _ by Deadpool, but he couldn’t help it. He didn’t want to see anyone else lost to this death game. _ Anyone. _

“Lead the way,” Peter said instead, waving a hand before him at the sidewalk.

“Psht!” Deadpool turned his nose up at the pedestrian walkway. “I’m not taking the slow and boring route. Keep up, Webs!”

Not bothering to explain, Deadpool threw himself into oncoming traffic. He hopped up onto the hood of a car, paused to regain his balance, and then started car hoping, the momentum easily launching him from moving vehicle to moving vehicle. Peter gaped.

“And he takes the lead!” Deadpool cackled over the continuous blaring of car horns.

Peter did not join in on Deadpool’s rendition of Frogger’s Moving Walkway, and instead used his webs to travel along the structure of the bridge. Deadpool kept pace fairly easily, likely using some skill to boost his speed. They were neck and neck as they traveled over the water. Peter refused to admit to the rush he felt during the chase, denying to himself that the stupid, juvenile game was any fun at all.

Though it totally was.

A transparent indicator message faded in and out at the top of Peter’s vision as they officially crossed into Manhattan. He did a flip as he let go of the webbing and landed on the sidewalk in an easy and practiced move. Deadpool thumped and thudded off of a few cars before rolling his way out of the street in a pile of limbs. He stood up and brushed himself off as if nothing had happened.

“Alright! We’re just a few blocks away!” Deadpool announced as he took off at an easy stroll. “I’ll cover the rules before we get there.”

“Sure.”

“You pay the cover fee. You’re still getting to see the show, so you still pay. There isn’t a great way to throw bills at the dancers, so the cover is important.”

“I’ve got the money.” At least, he _ should _have the money. He hoped. How much did it usually cost to get into a place like that? He had no idea, and seeing as how his only source of information was Deadpool, that didn’t inspire confidence that he wouldn’t get swindled out of more money if he asked.

“Don’t touch the goods!” Deadpool continued. “No licking, biting, sucking, kissing, caressing, or groping.”

“Do people do that?” Peter asked, aghast at the mental image of some guy leaning over to lick someone’s breasts without any form of consent.

“Only once,” Deadpool said, voice low and threatening before abruptly shifting into his more chipper tone. “Next, don’t ask the workers out for a date. The answer is no. It’s always no.”

“I’m glad to hear that, actually.” He worried about the possibility of a worker trying to escape their circumstances by dating someone full of promises. That would definitely lead to a toxic relationship.

“No cameras. Any cameras seen outside of a player’s inventory will be forcibly taken.”

Cameras were giant, professional-looking things, though they only held a few dozen photos at a time. The system wasn’t meant for a lot of cloud storage for random shots, Peter supposed. It was useful to get a layout of an area for map creation, studying new Boss attacks to better understand them, or detailing a player’s outfit to identify them later. Peter thought it was a waste to spend what few picture slots were available on avatars in underwear, but bored perverts might think differently.

“Don’t ask for services that are not provided by the club _ or _ ask for services that _ are _ provided by the club to happen _ outside _of the club.”

“And what services does the club provide?” Peter questioned, wondering how truthful Deadpool would be.

“The usual.” The merc shrugged and ticked them off on his fingers. “Private dances, dedicated waitress in the VIP rooms, strip poker.”

“Strip poker? Really?”

“Hey! Don’t diss the classics. Anywho. Last rule: Don’t trash talk other employees to an employee.”

“Does that actually happen?” Surely there was a reason for all the rules, but it surprised Peter to hear that one.

“More than you’d think. Apparently, some people don’t know how to flatter a person without insulting someone else.”

This wasn’t inspiring confidence. Working at a place where the rules enforced covered basic human decency didn’t sound particularly high class. Better money could be made making or repairing items, or even farming crafting materials. Sure, it was tedious, but it would be far less stressful.

At least, in Peter’s opinion.

“Also, you can’t go in there with full gear,” Deadpool said, his tone casual but with a hard edge that warned Peter not to argue.

“I didn’t assume that I could.” He was prepared for that. There were plenty of places where staying fully equipped was seen as a threat. That was where secret identities came in. However, Peter didn’t want Deadpool to know that information, so he had a backup suit ready, as many people did.

His backup suit was a plain black outfit with stats focused solely in health and regeneration. It dropped his attack power considerably, but that was the point. He could get away with wearing it and still feel safe. It was topped with a single half mask to maintain his anonymity.

“Here we are!” Deadpool announced.

Up ahead was an innocuous door set along a line of shops and businesses. Above it was a classy sign written in cursive: Hellfire Club. If Deadpool hadn’t pointed it out and Peter hadn’t been looking, he would have missed it entirely. He wasn’t sure what he expected when it came to the infamous club, but the plain, almost hidden exterior certainly wasn’t it.

There was no line or anyone guarding the door to stare suspiciously at Peter. Still, he awkwardly stopped a few feet back and pulled up his player menu in order to switch outfits. Deadpool did the same, though Peter was surprised to see how very similar the outfit was, just minus all the weapons. Even the mask was exactly the same.

Deadpool looked over at Peter and snickered.

“What?” Peter asked, immediately self-conscious and peeved about it.

“You look like a shitty cat burglar.”

Peter looked himself up and down. “I look fine!”

“Robble robble,” Deadpool wheezed, pointing and laughing hysterically.

“I do _ not _look like the Hamburglar!” Peter clenched his fists and stormed over to the door. “Let’s just go inside!”

The plain door led directly to a flight of stairs going down and opened into a classy foyer with an attendant prepared to check and make sure nobody was walking in with any active weaponry. Once they walked into the club proper, there would be a security lock set to prevent players from changing outfits. Though they called it “security” as if it was a player-controlled option, it was, in fact, a dungeon trap feature. That meant the club was built inside of an active dungeon.

It made sense, in a way. Anyone would be allowed to come and go while still maintaining the safety of those inside. It also meant that players couldn’t be locked inside the room if the owner of the building chose to remove permissions to the door. Of course, an active dungeon meant there had to be active opponents inside. Likely, there was one NPC criminal left inside that had been walled up and left there indefinitely.

Peter wasn’t comfortable with knowing that was the case, but there wasn’t much he could do about it. Nobody would be concerned over the fate of a computer-generated bad guy. Peter just hoped it was a mutated rat instead of a person…

“That will be one hundred thousand coin for the entrance fee,” the attendant said with a polite smile as if she hadn’t just spoken out loud such an absurd amount of money.

Peter almost shit himself on the spot (and might have were it an available option in the game), and it took him three times to find his voice. “Sure.”

It wasn’t that he didn’t have the money, but he long ago trained himself to be frugal. One never knew what could happen and what the money would be needed for. Dropping 100k on a softcore strip club was not what Peter considered to be a monetary emergency. He tried not to accidentally trigger a crying fit from his character as he watched the numbers in his account drop during the transfer.

“Thank you for your patronage,” the woman said. “I hope you enjoy your stay.”

With a cheerful disposition, Deadpool slapped a sagging Peter on the back and dragged them through the final door and into the club proper.

The walls of the club glowed red, indicating a trap dungeon. The club itself played on the aesthetic, the place decked out in black and silvers that reflected the ambient red. Player designed lanterns hung from the ceiling and suggestive art was set upon the walls. There were tables of all sizes and shapes scattered throughout, some on the large open floor and smaller ones placed in silk draped alcoves for a more intimate setting. Plush rugs covered the simple stone of the dungeon floor.

All in all, it looked like a dark-themed restaurant with its live music and open bar. It could have been brushed off as just distasteful uniform choices and nothing more. However, there were multiple raised platforms throughout the room, with women atop them putting on a show.

Peter felt the blush trigger on his cheeks, and he frowned at himself as he headed further inside. The women wore outfits he hadn’t known the game even offered, and he was heavily judging the designers for them. Some of the platforms had poles, and the players there were showing off rudimentary agility skills in a fashion Peter hoped they had never been designed for. He was going to end up thinking about those bouncing breasts the next time he did a backbend down a wall, he just knew it…

“Talented, aren’t they?” Deadpool asked, waving to one of the dancers who winked back.

“Uh, yeah…”

“May I get you a drink, sir?” someone asked.

Peter turned to see a baby faced and slim young man dressed up in a servant’s coattails that revealed more than it covered. He also sported cat ears and a tail that flicked around all on its own. Peter wasn’t sure if it was a part of an aesthetics pack for the game or just an equipable item. He looked for all the world like an anime character come to life.

“Shingo!” Deadpool cried and dropped a heavy arm around the man’s thin shoulders. “How’ve you been?”

Shingo offered a polite smile. “I have been well, but the mistress will be angry that you are breaking the rules and touching the clients again.”

Deadpool held a finger to his lips. “Shhh, our little secret. Hey, do me a favor, yeah?”

Peter took a step forward and grabbed Deadpool’s hand to forcibly remove it from Shingo’s shoulders. “You’re being a bad host, breaking the rules like that,” Peter said. Deadpool mumbled complaints, and Shingo’s eyebrows raised the slightest bit. “Would it be alright if we talked for a little while?”

The cat ears perked forward as Shingo’s head tilted to one side. The tray he held in front of him shifted up under one arm as he turned to look at Deadpool. “Is this who the mistress was complaining about?”

Peter’s stomach dropped. He hoped that getting the staff to talk to him wouldn’t be made more difficult by the owner informing them beforehand. Who knew what she had told them. Perhaps none of them would even listen to Peter, assuming he was some shady character, or worse, they might believe he could do nothing to help them.

“Nope!” Deadpool declared. “This is just a lackey. He’s way too nice of a guy wanting to make sure the fine employees here aren’t being psychologically abused or something. Is anyone free to talk to him for a bit? I’ll pay for a private dance.”

“Hmm…” Shingo looked back and assessed Peter once more. “Angel should be coming back from her break soon, so she should be free. Is the mistress okay with this?”

Peter offered a reassuring smiled. “I promise I’m just here to talk. I’m not trying to get anyone into trouble or start a fight with The White Queen.”

“Boss lady told me to handle it.” Deadpool shrugged. “I’m handling it. No unaliving needed!”

For the first time, Shingo’s bland and professional expression broke, an annoyed little frown peeking through, eyes narrowing at Deadpool’s nonchalance at the value of human life. “You’re a loose cannon,” he muttered. His polite face was back when he turned once more to Peter. “This way, sir. I’ll show you to the private rooms.”

Peter left Deadpool behind as he followed Shingo across the room and to a somewhat hidden entrance leading to a long hallway. They passed by multiple rooms filled with people and dancers, and though the rooms had no doors, no noise escaped into the hall. Peter knew there were stealth class spells that could mute sound in an area, but it was odd to see it used on the hallway for such a purpose. He couldn’t even hear the band or chatter or patrons any longer.

“Here you are, sir,” Shingo said as they entered a room decorated in jewel-toned blues. There was a plush loveseat set in the middle of the room that Peter awkwardly sat on. “I will return with Angel in a moment.”

“Thank you,” Peter said as Shingo turned to leave, “for letting me be here.”

Shingo glanced over his shoulder, tail flicking and ears twitching. “If all you want to do is talk, then that’s fine. I’d rather the mistress not send her mad dog out to hurt anyone if we can just tell someone like you that we want to stay. I, for one, like it here.” With that, he left.

In the corner of the room was a transmitter, tucked away and glowing faintly. They were used for group communications, like speakerphone, since direct calls to players didn’t allow for such things. The connected transmitter must have been set close to the band, for the music played crystal clear, filling the room with the ambient sound. It was better than sitting in silence, he supposed. Not to mention, he figured it would be rather awkward to do a private dance to only the sound of a client’s breathing and lewd comments.

Peter thought about what Black Cat would say if she saw him now, waiting in a dungeon room at the den of the enemy with their full knowledge that he was there. They’d had enough time to set a trap. They also had every reason to send someone prepared to tell him lies. Cat would probably be livid with him for being dragged along and possibly putting his life in danger.

After all, it wasn’t like he had any reason to trust Deadpool. And he didn’t, of course. It was just… he found himself giving the guy the benefit of the doubt. He was a mercenary hired by someone who was obviously not shy about using those skills. Yet, despite having a perfect opportunity to do so, he hadn’t attacked Peter or Black Cat.

So, “trust” wasn’t the word for it, but Peter couldn’t help but believe that Deadpool was attempting to find a non-violent solution. None of the workers had acted like they were afraid of the man. Annoyed, perhaps, and Peter could understand that emotion, but not afraid. In that respect, it truly seemed like Deadpool had complete faith that nothing was wrong at the club and Peter’s investigation would stop all prying eyes.

_ That sounds kinda naive, though, doesn’t it? _ Peter thought to himself as he leaned back against the satin cushions and picked at his pants. _ It’s not like a single visit will satisfy Cat. Does he really think things can be resolved that easily? _

And if he really did… Why? Everyone living in Marvel Online for as long as they had were jaded and living by their own agenda first and foremost, so—

“Sir? May I present [Angel](https://marvel.fandom.com/wiki/Angel_Salvadore_\(Earth-616\))?”

Peter looked up to see a dark-skinned woman enter the room, gossamer wings trailing behind her. A sash wrapped low on her hips with hanging panels that barely hid anything. Some kind of sparkling armor trailed down her arms and sides, but everything from collarbone to belly button was an open panel showing off her skin. Bright red lips smirked at Peter as she sauntered into the room.

“Hey there, handsome. I hear you’re lookin’ for a show?”

Peter cleared his throat and forced his eyes to look away from the glimpse of side boob. He swallowed hard, hands gripping the couch cushions with force. “Just looking to talk. Talking’s nice. Just a chat.”

One would think Peter would be used to sultry women thanks to being around Black Cat for so long. One would be wrong. A year and a half was a long time to go without even the courtesy to masturbate.

“Talk?” Angel looked between Peter and Shingo. “About what?”

Peter took a steadying breath and made eye contact with Angel. “How did you end up working for the club?”

Her eyebrows crashed together in confusion for a long moment before traveling up her forehead. “Ohhh, you think there’s something shady going on.”

“There’s no OSHA or BBB here to help manage worker rights. I guess you could say I’m just a concerned citizen checking in.”

That pulled a surprised laugh from Angel. “Concerned citizen! Shouldn’t you be worrying about how to keep your ass alive until we get outta here?” She walked over and fell onto the loveseat beside Peter, legs kicked out in front of her and crossed at the ankle. “It’s every lady for herself these days.”

“For better or worse, we’re trapped in here, so this is our life. And honestly, I don’t want to live a life where we just ignore when someone’s in trouble.”

She smirked. “You were really aiming for that hero role, weren’t you?”

Peter shrugged. “We all joined this game to be heroes for a day, right? There’s gotta be some good in everyone.”

Angel hummed, eyes distant as she thought about that. Shingo, who was hovering by the door, rolled his eyes. “I heard there were unique aesthetic rewards.” He pointed at the cat ears. “How was I supposed to pass up an opportunity to have these in a full virtual reality world?”

“So you won the quest for those?”

Shingo scoffed. “No! I’m not good at these kinds of games. I’m more of an otome player. The ears and tail were promised to me for joining the club. They followed through.”

That was an odd reason to join such an establishment, but Peter wasn’t there to judge… “Do you just serve drinks to customers?”

“Usually. The guys want tits and the girls want Magic Mike. Nobody appreciates a good uke!”

“A what?” Peter felt like there was an integral part of the conversation that was going over his head.

“Shingo’s a teenage girl in real life — and an otaku,” Angel offered as way of explanation.

“I’m 18 now!”

“So you say.”

“Anyways! I just really like neko boys,” Shingo said with a confident nod.

“Oh,” Peter replied, not knowing what else to say.

It wasn’t like Peter hadn’t known gender swaps were an option. Plenty of people chose a different gender as an avatar. There were many people in Marvel Online who didn’t own up to it, either out of embarrassment or dysphoria. However, he’d yet to meet a person so unperturbed by the character difference and unafraid to detail the reasons for the choice.

“Don’t let the others fool you,” Shingo scolded into Peter’s brain dead silence. “Half the strippers here are men. You can always tell.” He — she? — held cupped hands up to her flat chest. “Dudes pick the maximum boob size. Like [Amora](https://marvel.fandom.com/wiki/Amora_\(Earth-616\))!”

“Hey!” Angel cut in. “Don’t go outing people. You know he hates it when clients find out.”

“How can people not tell?” Shingo crinkled her nose. “With a stage name like _ Enchantress_, he’s _ begging _to be called on it. He talks like an incel, too.”

Angel made a face like she agreed but didn’t respond. Instead, she turned back to Peter. “I was farming before this, and it was driving me half out of my mind. It left me too much time to think and obsess about what was happening back in the real world. I was in the middle of a bachelor’s degree, you know? It’s not like student loans have any mercy on the family.”

“So you saw this as an easier job?” Peter asked.

“It’s a lot more distracting. It’s not a hard job, and I get a room, food, and time off if I need it. I prefer working, though. Besides, it reminds me of my clubbing days, ya know? Of times when I wasn’t constantly afraid of getting killed.”

“We’re safe here,” Shingo agreed. “Getting this job was the first time I slept the whole night through in over a year.”

“And if you wanted to leave?” Peter asked, careful to keep his voice neutral.

“I could leave if I wanted to, but why bother?” Shingo stuck her nose in the air. “Even if this was the lesser of two evils, I’d still choose this than out there. But I like it here.” She flicked her tail wide to prove her point.

“I’ll admit they like to keep us around, one way or another,” Angel said, tilting her head in thought. “Though that has more to do with keeping trade secrets insular so nobody else starts up a business like this.”

“And runs it the _ bad _way,” Shingo added.

“But if you’re tired of being treated like a piece of meat, there are other jobs to do off the floor. I just _ really _hate crafting.”

“It’s boring,” Shingo agreed.

“I heard you also get part of the cover change?” Peter asked.

“We do,” Angel confirmed. “It’s less than you’d imagine, but it’s not like we’re spending it on much.”

“The dancers make more than me,” Shingo pouted, then held up her hand, showing off a silver band on her finger. “But they give us rings with really heavy life and regen stats.”

“I’m glad to hear it,” Peter said, and he meant it. Knowing they were given items to help keep them safe was a big relief.

“So do we meet your OSHA standards?” Angel asked with a smirk.

“I don’t actually get that joke,” Shingo announced, causing both Peter and Angel to cringe.

“You’re such a kid,” Angel muttered.

“Hey!”

Peter cut in before it could turn into a fight. “I do feel a lot better after talking to you guys. I’ll probably check out the rest of the club as well before I leave. But. I think we can all agree that The White Queen and those that work for her are extremely intimidating.”

Angel and Shingo both hummed in agreement but said nothing out loud.

“So, I’d really appreciate it if the two of you would friend me. If anyone here would like to leave but feels too intimidated to do so, I want to help. Before you ask, no, I don’t plan on storming the castle. I just want to make sure everyone is aware of their options.”

“And what would they do if they did leave?” Shingo asked. “You gonna let them couch surf?”

“I have a lot of connections, Team Avengers included.”

“Are they really trying to clear out Staten Island?” Angel asked.

Peter nodded. “And making good headway.”

Shingo shrugged and swiped a finger through the air as she approached Peter. “I don’t mind adding you. Keep me updated if you see anyone selling cat accessories in anything other than black, yeah?”

“Sure.” Peter smiled and pulled up his menu to add Shingo to his friend’s list. “And contact me if you need anything.”

“Don’t get your hopes up. I like it here.”

Angel watched them for a time before bringing up her own screen and adding Peter as well. “You seem like a nice guy, at least.”

“Uh, thanks… And hey, ya know, I really appreciate you guys taking the time to talk to me.”

“You should check out the rest of the club while you’re here,” Angel said as she stood up and ran her hands down her outfit in a habit to smooth it down, though the pixels didn’t need it. “I think you’ll get a better idea of why this place is so popular if you go downstairs.”

Shingo snickered. “He blushed just looking at your outfit, and you wanna send him downstairs?”

Angel lifted one shoulder in a lazy shrug. “He looks pent up.” She turned to wink at Peter before walking away, wings drifting behind her in a shimmering haze.

“Enjoy your stay!” Shingo said with a bright smile before taking a deep breath and falling back into the somewhat aloof character Peter had seen when he first arrived.

_ Well, that went about as well as it could have, I suppose, _ Peter thought to himself. Next was to observe the main floor to see how clients acted around the employees, and if an incident occurred, how it was handled. After that… _ What exactly is downstairs? _

Peter pulled up his menu again and sent a quick message to Cat to come get him if she didn’t hear from him again within four hours. With that done, Peter made his way back out to the main floor. Deadpool was nowhere in sight, so Peter let himself wander, keeping an eye on the workers and the clients who ogled them.

For the most part, nothing looked out of line. He considered that this was set up with him in mind, but his gut told him that everyone at the club was just as surprised by Deadpool’s actions as he was. So he got to witness a few sexist comments and attempts to touch, but the workers were accustomed to dodging such things. Shingo and a few other servers were skilled at blocking wandering hands with a well-placed serving tray and a hard look.

However, for the most part, everyone behaved according to the rules. Some of the workers seemed to truly enjoy their jobs, as if they got something out of flirting with clients only to blue ball them. Maybe they did. The music wasn’t bad either. They were a talented group who had put together quite a few jazz tunes that they mixed with some more popular songs.

“And now, our dear guests, may we present, the star of Hellfire, Ms. [Dazzler](https://marvel.fandom.com/wiki/Alison_Blaire_\(Earth-616\))!”

Peter turned toward the main stage as the room filled with applause. There was a woman sporting a shimmering white, skin-tight outfit and thick, blonde hair. She had a captivating smile, and as Peter learned once the band began to play, a captivating voice. The system provided character voices based on how the player wished them to sound. Singing was usually heavily autotuned for that reason. How Dazzler had managed to work with the gameplay in order to sing so well was a mystery, but Peter understood why she was so popular.

“Been having fun?” a deep voice asked directly in Peter’s ear.

Peter startled and whipped around to find Deadpool’s smirking mask. “I thought you had left.”

“Nah, just letting you do your thing.” Deadpool dropped an arm around Peter’s shoulders and proceeded to walk them away from the main floor. “While everyone’s distracted by the big show, let me bring you somewhere nice.”

Once more, Peter was taken down the hallway with the private rooms, but this time, they didn’t stop at one of the alcoves. Instead, Deadpool led them to the end of the long hall, the lights dropping lower and lower as they went. At last, they came upon a set of stairs. The girls earlier had mentioned something being downstairs…

“What’s down there?” Peter asked, pulling them to a stop.

“A place for adults,” Deadpool happily replied. “I’m pretty sure I pegged your age right. Heh heh. Pegged.”

“I’m over drinking age, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“Pop quiz! Which Golden Girl is still alive?”

“Betty White.”

“You passed! Let’s go.”

“Betty White is a meme now, that’s a terrible question.”

Peter dug his heels in, suddenly very unsure about what he was going to face, but Deadpool was insistent and strong. Unless Peter wanted to turn things into a fight, he had no choice but to follow. So down they went, the red glow of the walls lighting their way until they emerged into another cavernous room.

It took Peter a solid five seconds for his brain to process what he was seeing.

“Is… this…”

“A one-hundred percent bonified sex dungeon, yes siree bob!” Deadpool happily announced. “What else would a bunch of bored, deprived, thirsty gamers get up to when stuck in one place?”

A whip cracked, followed by a shout, and Peter flinched, head jerking over to see someone strapped to a wall and being hit with a level five basic whip. “Why…”

“Some people are into pain, Spidey,” Deadpool admonished. “Don’t kinkshame.”

Someone else in the room moaned, and Peter looked over to one person’s head buried in another’s crotch. Everywhere he looked, he was surrounded by erotic scenes. No, he was surrounded by live porn ads after living _ too long _ with enforced celibacy. It was making him insanely horny. What he didn’t get was why people wanted to make that state of denial worse for themselves.

Sure, if he was ever riled up enough, he’d have a wet dream. Sometimes he’d wake up to the fading feeling of release. Perhaps that meant he was having night emissions in real life, stuck in some hospital bed. That thought was embarrassing enough but so was constantly getting hard-ons from being horny. Did he have a hard-on right now? Was some nurse judging him?

“As you can see,” Deadpool said, sounding pleased, “the real appeal of the club is getting to explore those kinks you always wanted to try in a controlled environment.”

“And what? Everyone has a denial kink?” Peter asked. “I don’t get it. This is just a lesson in frustration.”

He would know. He felt like he was on fire, his gut churning, and his crotch demanding attention even though it would do no good. He couldn’t take off his underwear, and no matter how skimpy the items he equipped, it would never reveal any kind of genitalia. So why were the people around him moaning like they were in the throes of passion? Had the game increased their imaginations that much?

“You don’t know,” Deadpool said in surprised excitement, voice soft with a touch of wonder.

Peter swallowed nervously. “Know what?”

“Oh, you poor deprived thing.” Deadpool moved behind Peter, arms encircling the smaller waist. Peter tensed, and Deadpool made a shushing noise. “Just relax. Look over there at those two.”

Unconsciously, Peter’s eyes followed where Deadpool pointed. There was a couple looking for all the world like they were having sex, their outfits skin-tight where it touched skin at all. The woman’s breasts were bouncing with each thrust, and the man had his head tipped back in pleasure before surging forward to kiss her. It was like watching live amateur porn — while surrounded by pop-up kink windows.

Deadpool’s hand wrapped around Peter’s wrist. Though Peter couldn’t say why, he allowed himself to be moved where the other man wanted him to go. When his own hand touched his crotch, he flinched, and Deadpool’s free hand shot up to grab his chin and keep him staring at the couple.

“Don’t think too much. Relax,” Deadpool rumbled directly into Peter’s ear.

The large body pressed against him, the sensation of warmth sinking into his back, his fingers whispering over an area that felt far more sensitive than it should… Peter was abruptly reminded of how very bisexual he was. True, he hadn’t dated a guy before, but that didn’t mean scenarios such as the one he was in wouldn’t flash across his sleepy imagination when he was jerking off in bed.

Deadpool’s hand wrapped around his own and started moving it in a familiar motion. “Just think about it — your dick in your hand. You know what that feels like, right?”

Peter did. He sucked in a breath as pleasure shot through him. It didn’t feel like fabric under his palm anymore. It felt like flesh. Like his own familiar shaft at long last, sitting naturally in his palm, being worked over by his fingers in the way he liked best. His breathing kicked up, and his legs felt unsteady.

“What…” Peter tried to look down, to see if his cock was really out, but Deadpool’s hand on his chin stopped him once more.

“Don’t look. You’ll break the magic of the moment. Eyes ahead. Focus on those two. You see how much fun they’re having?”

Did the couple feel what Peter was feeling? Did it feel like they were having sex, despite the clothes? Distantly, he realized it made a sort of sense. They felt pain during battle because their brains said that they should. They recognized fabric because their minds remembered what leather and cotton and silk felt like. So sexual pleasure, a base part of their instincts, would, of course, come through loud and clear in the same way.

Peter wasn’t sure why he hadn’t come to that conclusion long ago. He had just laid in bed, not touching himself and hoping it would help his horny need just a little bit. Like an idiot.

So now that he had started touching, there was nothing he could do to stop himself. A year and a half’s worth of sexual frustration hit him like a truck. His muscles tensed as he worked himself over, fast and insistent. His eyes flicked across the room, taking in the hedonistic sights and letting it stimulate him more. _ Fuck_, he had missed this so much. It was like he’d finally been reunited with his favorite body part.

Orgasm hit him hard in no time at all, which was expected, given the circumstances. He shuddered and groaned as he slowly worked himself through it, eyes rolling and toes curling. The people around him continued their own pleasure, none of them sparing a glance at the lone man standing near the door and jerking himself off.

Belatedly, it occurred to Peter that he really was the only person just standing there. He whipped around and found Deadpool to be missing, though he wasn’t sure when that had happened. Getting to touch himself had been so distracting that he had been consumed by it. Speaking of… Peter looked down, but there was no evidence of what he’d just done. His pants were still in place, his cock nowhere to be seen.

He had a disturbing mental image of himself in a hospital room and some poor nurse walking in to his hard-on and triumphant pent-up climax — and then having to clean it. Mortification surged through him, but he tried to talk himself down. There was no guarantee he was in a hospital, that was just the common theory. Though if he was still at home in his bed, having his parents clean it up was _ worse. _

But in either scenario, surely he had a catheter in, so it would be caught, right? Or would it be stuck? Were his balls going to explode from backed up ejaculate? They’d check for that, right?

Peter slapped his hands over his face and groaned for a different reason. He really needed to get a rein on his spiraling thoughts. He had overcome the fact that his physical body was beyond his control long ago, and he had to entrust himself to the outside world. This was just another part of that. No need to freak out over it. That certainly wasn’t helpful.

And honestly, what was his alternative? More denial? _ No, thank you. _

Another whip-crack startled Peter out of his internal monologue. He needed to get out of there. He’d collected a lot of information on the club and didn’t think there was more to be had. He should report back to Cat.

“Well, thanks for the show, guys,” Peter mumbled to the room at large, though nobody paid him any mind. He saluted them all as he turned and made his way back up the ominous-looking stairs and down the hall to the main floor still filled with music. It felt like two completely different worlds.

“I close my eyes and see you before me. Think I would die if you were to ignore me,” Dazzler sang, catching Peter’s attention. She really did have a wonderful voice. He watched her, genuinely enjoying the song until she reached the chorus, and he realized what it was she was singing.

This club was going to be the death of him.

“Spider-man, is it?”

Peter whirled around. What was it with people sneaking up on him here? Using the crowd to distract his _ spidey sense _ was playing dirty.

The person standing there had to be The White Queen, considering the outfit and _ I own the place _ stare. She looked ready to walk up on stage herself — or perhaps ready to walk downstairs with a whip. Piercing blue eyes bored into Peter’s mask, waiting for an answer. Behind her stood a broad-shouldered, heavily muscled man covered in tattoos, who had to be Warpath the bodyguard, and a woman in a skin-tight, green outfit complete with lace-up boots.

“Who’s asking?” Peter automatically responded.

The White Queen frowned harder. “There’s been a certain stray cat sniffing around our property. Perhaps you should put a leash on her.”

“Cats don’t really like leashes. Can you imagine trying to walk a cat?”

All of them continued to frown. Tough crowd.

“I’m not here to cause trouble,” he tried again. “We just wanted to make sure everything was up to code.”

“I don’t see how it’s any of your business,” the other woman said, face pinched in disgust.

“Enchantress,” The White Queen warned in a low voice, but Enchantress refused to back down.

“What’s the problem? Not strong enough to be a hero in the game, so you gotta make up victims in your own head? I bet back in the real world, a guy couldn’t ask you out for a drink without you screaming rape and ruining his life because he wasn’t hot enough for you.”

Peter raised his eyebrows. “Wow. You’re really doing this?”

“You’re just an ugly bitch mad that you’re stuck in a male avatar.”

It was weird, in a way. Peter had seen his fair share of internet trolls spew this sort of thing, but being a guy, he’d always been a reader, never a person under direct attack. It was different, taking the brunt of it. He couldn’t quite keep up, all his clever responses wiped clean from his head as all brainpower went towards trying to process the insane vitriol hurled at him.

How often did Black Cat have that sort of rant aimed her way? No wonder she hated men.

“Fucking Social Justice Warriors trying to make an issue out of everything. You’re so focused on crying victim that you’re pointing at avatars who can’t even pull their own dick out, much less shove it in a—”

“Enough,” The White Queen snapped, and Warpath shifted his weight forward, eyes pinned on the angry, green stripper.

That was, unfortunately, a popular opinion. Peter knew that Iron Man had plenty of players locked in cells who still raged that they’d done nothing wrong simply because the avatars weren’t real and penetration wasn’t an option. Getting into an argument on harassment and morality was not what he was in Hellfire Club for, however, so he kept his mouth shut.

Though not without effort.

“Get back to work,” The White Queen commanded in a voice that brooked no further argument.

“Fine, play house with the misandrist. I’m gonna go make some money.” Enchantress stormed off, wild hair billowing behind her as she went.

“Quite the charmer, that one,” Peter remarked to nobody in particular.

The White Queen took a deep breath, composing herself as her stoic mask slipped back into place. “I care for the health and safety of those in my employ, that is why I started this establishment. I run a business, not a jail. Now, I have suffered your presence long enough. I most certainly did not approve your entrance into my club. If you’re satisfied, I ask that you leave. Someone prowling around for information, looking to cause trouble, doesn’t help me retain regular customers.”

Warpath’s eyes narrowed, and Peter knew better than to push his luck. He held up his hands. “No trouble. I’ll leave on my own. Thanks for the hospitality!” He didn’t get a response.

Peter wasted no time making his way to the exit, heavily aware of the eyes piercing into his back as he went. Nobody followed him, thankfully, and once outside, he immediately switched costumes, webbing himself up into the sky. Away from the press of people, he was able to focus on his _ spidey sense _ but detected nobody following him. That was a relief, at least.

The whole experience of the club had been nothing like he expected. And though he loathed to say he was grateful for what he’d learned downstairs… Well, he’d definitely end up using that in the future — in the privacy of his own room this time.

Swinging high, he landed on an outcropping of a building and looked out across the rooftops. Here and there he could see flashes of players’ powers as they fought various enemies. NPCs ran along the sidewalks, laughing and enjoying a night out. Overhead was a clear, black sky full of stars that Peter was certain couldn’t be seen when living in the real NYC.

For better or worse, this game wouldn’t be his life forever, but while it was, he wouldn’t let fear keep him locked in a dungeon or a Stark sponsored apartment. While he lived this strange detour of life, he would be a hero. He would be Peter Parker.

He would be Spider-man.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had a plan for what would be in this chapter, but hooo boy, did it end up longer than expected.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you have a personal AO3 skin up, I can't guarantee that my special formatting is coming through because I'm using a work skin for this fic. Just fyi.
> 
> Also, I think my tags are scaring people off. I'm sorry! It's not sad at the tags imply! I promise! T.T

08/2024

Unsurprisingly, Cat was not wholly satisfied with Peter’s investigation given the circumstances. She decided to continue looking into things on her own, though Peter begged her to be more circumspect. The White Queen had made it clear that she had no qualms with sending someone to finish the job in a more permanent manner than Deadpool had.

With that done, Peter went back to his old delusion of assuming he’d never see the crazy mercenary again. Once more, he was wrong. Over the next few weeks, Peter noticed that he was being followed. His _ spidey sense _ went off on a regular basis. Occasionally, Peter would catch a blur of red and black as it dove for cover.

Deadpool was able to get closer to Peter than anyone had before. It didn’t sit well with him. So, he spent precious skill points on upping his _ spidey sense _ even higher to compensate. It physically hurt him to do so, as he’d been saving them in case he needed a specific boost for whatever new Boss power came about. On the flip side, he was now able to detect the difference between the proximity of a person and an attack, which was pretty cool.

He was also able to tell if Deadpool was nearby up to 40 yards, which was still far closer than Peter preferred.

The merc showed up randomly and did little else but observe. Peter assumed it had to do with Black Cat and the investigation. Why else would Deadpool be sneaking around? So Peter did his best to ignore the sense of dread that came from being stalked and just went about his normal routine, trying to prove he wasn’t interested in causing trouble for the Hellfire Club.

Things changed the day Peter was talking to Mia, a college student looking for her boyfriend. Peter was grinding for criminal activity in [College Point](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/College_Point,_Queens), trying to clean out the last of the quests in the area before pushing further inland. Anything close to Manhattan was always safer, as all the big bosses and event bosses had been cleared. As a solo player, he needed to be careful.

“Please, Spider-man, you’re the only one who can talk any sense into Antonio. He isn’t this person! He’s just worried about his family.” Mia rubbed at her own hands in worry. “This is all my fault…”

“Don’t say that,” Peter soothed.

They were near a busy street corner that transitioned from houses into a line of shops and restaurants. Above them were planters hanging from an awning, filling the air with the scent of flowers. Some kids on rollerskates zoomed by behind them, paying no mind to the superhero and the fretting NPC he spoke to.

“It is!” Mia insisted, her long, dark hair constantly in motion from the gusts of wind kicked up by traffic and the sea breeze tunneling through the street grid. “We got in a fight. I told him to take that factory job with his dad even though I know he hates it. I was just tryin’ to push him to _ do _ something instead of acting like takin’ a job for the [Maggia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maggia_\(comics\)) was the only thing to do.”

“Do you know where the job is?” Peter asked.

She shook her head. “He said something about the docks, but I can’t be sure.”

“I’ll look into it,” Peter promised.

Mia ran a hand through her hair, distressed and angry all at once. Her eyes went distant, looking somewhere past the crowds that filled the sidewalks. “That idiot! Getting himself into this…”

“Don’t worry. I’ll bring him home. You can count on me.” Peter backed up and launched himself up onto the awning and began climbing the brick wall, but Mia’s voice stopped him again.

“Spider-man! Tell him that I don’t care what job he gets or if we struggle to get by for a few years. I just want him to be happy.”

Peter smiled. “Will do, Mia. Stay safe!”

She waved as he jumped across fire escapes and balconies of cramped houses in a pseudo-staircase in order to hop up onto a rooftop. Abruptly, he was a foot away from Deadpool’s face, and his _ spidey sense _ blared in his head. He stumbled back in surprise, arms pinwheeling to catch his balance lest he tumble backwards off the building. At least he was only three stories up.

“Ah! Wh-what? Why?” Yet again, Deadpool rendered Peter completely illiterate. Why had his _ spidey sense _ been so delayed?

Deadpool made a movement with his hand and the thing strapped around his chest pixelated and disappeared back into his inventory. _ The teleporter. _ That thing should have been illegal. Talk about overpowered…

“Ya know,” Deadpool started, conversationally. “There are quicker methods to finding targets than tracking down their entire life story.”

Peter frowned. “I’m aware.” He had had this argument plenty of times and had no desire to debate it with Deadpool, of all people. “If that’s all you needed…”

Turning away, Peter jogged over to the other side of the roof and started hopping buildings, making his way to the docks. For whatever reason, Deadpool followed.

“They all follow certain patterns,” he continued. “Once you learn them, it’s pretty easy to guess where they’ll be—”

“I know!” Peter put a little more strength into his stride, pulling ahead, but Deadpool would not be so easily deterred.

“There’s better things to do with your time. Have you ever been to the spa on 57th? That place is amazing!”

“Don’t let me stop you from visiting, then.”

The smell of the brine grew stronger. Peter checked his location and adjusted, web-slinging between buildings if they were too far apart to hop across. He was mostly sure that any illegal activity Antonio was involved in wasn’t happening at the yacht club docks, so he headed to the one near the industrial area. The Maggia had caused trouble there in the past, and it was true that the game patterns were pretty easy to read after playing for so long.

From behind Peter came a clang and what sounded like a verbal keyboard smash. He skidded to a stop and turned around, seeing nothing but empty air. A few seconds later, Deadpool’s head popped up over the side of the roof, followed by arms and a lot of grunting as he attempted to heave himself back onto solid cement. Peter wasn’t sure what happened, but… Wasn’t Deadpool supposed to be a dangerous mercenary? How had he tripped during a simple rooftop run?

“Did you need something?” Peter asked, his wariness and confusion causing him to sound more than a little annoyed.

“I was just curious,” Deadpool grunted as he rolled onto the rooftop.

“About what?”

“I’ll let you know when I figure it out!” He stood up and brushed himself off in exaggerated movements. “You’re going to the docks, yeah? Let’s team up!”

Peter frowned. “I’m just doing basic patrolling.”

Farming low-level criminals wasn’t suited to team-ups, as it split the experience points. Sure, the quests went faster in a team, but College Point was nearly cleared out, so new quests were further apart. Thus, the faster completion would do them little good in the long run. Grinding a new neighborhood packed with events and quests was better suited to team-ups.

“You hoarding the heroing all to yourself?” Deadpool tilted his head. “I hadn't pegged you for the type.”

That nagged at Peter’s sensibilities, and he immediately tensed, shoulders drawing up in offense. “That is not what I’m doing!”

“Great!” Deadpool clapped his hands together with a big grin. “The team-up is on!”

Before Peter could say more, Deadpool took off in the direction of the docks, leaving Peter scrambling to keep up. _ What the hell is with this guy? _ Deadpool was impossible to figure out, and that didn’t make Peter feel at all safe in the man’s presence.

They arrived at the dock to see men loading a shipping container in an endless loop. There were two others standing further away brandishing guns and keeping an eye on the surroundings, waiting for a player to enter their aggro zone. Peter paused to assess the situation and determine how best to go about things, but Deadpool didn’t wait.

“LEROY JENKINS!”

Deadpool was promptly riddled with bullets. Peter let out a string of cursing as he jumped into the fray. Since Deadpool’s health wasn’t dropping dramatically, Peter focused on webbing up the guys who were trying to run for it. That would keep them in place until he could either knock down their HP or wait for the capture timer to finish and declare their defeat.

Once that was taken care of, he turned back to find one of the gun-wielders skewered on a katana. Peter rushed in to knock out the other one before he suffered the same fate. His HP was already low, so he went down easily. Peter webbed the guy to a nearby van just in case.

When Peter turned to Deadpool’s fight, it was already over. The second katana had come down, ignoring the pop-up boxes and forcing the choice by killing the guy. He exploded in a burst of flickering light and colors.

Peter was livid. “What the hell are you doing?”

Deadpool paused, mid battle stance, and stared at Peter in surprise. “Uh… Stabbing Maggia guys?”

“He was new!”

As a new lacky, there should have been three rounds to send the guy to jail, at the very least. Outside of experience points, however, there was time and opportunity to track down the guy’s backstory. That was how Peter did things. It was common for other players to not care, but they at least had the sense to not kill a villain prior to farming all the EXP out first.

“This is why I solo,” Peter shouted, finger stabbing the air as he backed away. “Leave. I’ll handle this on my own.”

Deadpool pulled himself up into a more relaxed stance, sword tips stabbing at the dirt by his sides. He tilted his head, like a puppy trying to process a strange noise. “You’re mad.”

“You killed him!” Peter raged.

“So? Plenty of other superheroes fight like this. I just passed a group today that—”

“Ugh! I don’t care how you or other people do things! I was soloing. _ You _ wanted to team up with _ me. _ That means we do things by _ my _ rules, and that includes _ not _ rushing into a battle without discussing it and _ not _killing people.”

Again, Deadpool took a moment to contemplate what was being said, as if it truly baffled him. It only served to anger Peter more. Plenty of people questioned why he cared so much about NPCs or the villains they fought. Even when he tried to explain it, they didn’t care to listen. Players didn’t want the game to be any more complicated than the tactics needed to survive.

“Why?” Deadpool asked.

That was always the question. Why do you care? Why does it matter? Why are you talking to someone that isn’t real? He was so tired of those questions. If they would only take a moment to pay attention and— 

“Why are you so different from everyone else?”

It was Peter’s turn to pause and really consider the question he’d just been asked. “I’m… not?”

Deadpool shook his head before re-sheathing his katanas with a sigh. “So we _ can’t _ stab anyone, but we _ can _ punch people, but we _ can’t _ unalive them, but we _ can _cocoon them indefinitely. Your rules are confusing.”

Peter resisted the urge to leap forward and strangle the pain-in-the-ass, but it was a close call. His fingers tightened on air, and he bit back a strangled, frustrated shout. “There are _ capture countdowns_, remember? My webbing lasts nearly two hours, so it covers everything from the short to long-timers. And don’t complain about captures taking too long!”

With that, he stormed over to the workers still webbed up and struggling. They all shouted generic lines, so Peter ignored them. He was more focused on the fact that Antonio was not among them. Frowning, Peter moved over to peek into the shipping container and almost got a crowbar to the face for his trouble. Thankfully, _ spidey sense _ gave him enough time to backbend out of the way.

Antonio swung again, but Peter whirled around and dropped an elbow on the man’s back just hard enough to send Antonio to the ground and take out most of his hit points. Peter backed up to get out of range of the crowbar and lifted his hands, ready to web Antonio to the wall. However, Antonio just rolled over on the ground and aimed a small pistol.

“Shit.” Peter dodged, but the bullet grazed his arm, red mesh forming to indicate the wound. It stung, but his own hit points were hardly affected. He could take on petty crime all day and walk away in one piece. It wasn’t a big deal.

Peter dodged two more shots as he gained on Antonio before a knife twirled through the air and knocked the gun away. Antonio swung wild with the crowbar as he scrambled backwards and onto his feet. Peter didn’t give him a chance to run and sent him flying with a kick to the gut.

“Sit down a minute, we need to chat,” Peter quipped.

Antonio hit the dirt and rolled to a stop. He groaned but didn’t get back up. The notification boxes popped up into Peter’s vision, but before he could even do anything about it, Deadpool was trotting over, swords raised.

“He shot you, so this one is free game, right?” He swung the swords down, but they slipped from his grip as Peter tackled the merc and sent them crashing into the dirt.

“What did I just say?” Peter yelled as he webbed Deadpool’s hands to his body. _ Spidey sense _indicated an attack from behind. He rolled out of the way, missing Deadpool’s boot and webbed the leather-clad legs together before jumping to his feet.

“Why are you even here?” Peter demanded.

“Why don’t you care about being shot?” Deadpool returned, doing his best to wiggle his way free of the webbing. Peter applied more for good measure. “He started this fight! We’re ending it!”

Peter shot another glob of webbing to muffle Deadpool’s ranting. “Stay there. I’ll show you how to end a fight.”

Taking a deep breath, Peter walked back over to Antonio, which prompted the text boxes. Three options popped up this time, and Peter was relieved to know he’d gotten enough backstory to trigger it.

You have defeated the criminal!

Call the police and send him to jail.

Make sure this kind of trash is never seen again.

Attempt Reform

Peter tapped the last box. Antonio groaned and pushed himself up, falling back into a rumpled sitting position with a wince. Peter squatted down so they were at eye level and waited for the NPC to start the conversation.

“Just do what you gotta do already, Spider-man,” Antonio muttered.

“You know, we’ve done this song and dance three times already. I’m starting to think working for the Maggia isn’t suited for you.”

Antonio uttered a harsh laugh. “I ain’t got a choice.”

“I don’t think that’s true. In fact, it was Mia who begged me to bring you back home.”

“Mia?” Antonio looked up with equal parts hope and guilt. “I thought she’d still be mad after that fight…”

Peter smiled. “She told me that she said some things she didn’t mean. Heat of the moment, right?”

Antonio rubbed the back of his neck. “I guess we both did.”

“She asked me to pass along a message. ‘Tell him that I don’t care what job he gets or if we struggle to get by for a few years. I just want him to be happy.’”

“She… She really said that?” At Peter’s nod, Antonio curled in on himself. “I don’t deserve her.”

“That’s how you know she’s good for you. In fact, you should take her to go see your mom and have dinner.”

“Ma?”

“Yeah, I saw her the other day — had a box of tissues in her hands when she asked if I’d seen you. She said her allergies were acting up.”

“Ma’s never had allergies in her life,” Antonio said, his voice choking up as he looked away.

Peter stood up and offered a hand, which thankfully Antonio took. He brushed himself off and stared at the gun and crowbar at his feet. After a long moment, he kicked them away from him. They burst in a spray of jagged, colored light. Peter clapped him on the shoulder.

“There’s no shame in making an honest living. In fact, knowing your mom’s cooking, I think you could open a pretty nice restaurant.”

“Yeah?”

“Definitely.”

“Ma’s lasagna _ is _the best. Man, I’ve missed it…” He sniffled and wiped at his eyes. “Stupid allergies. Musta got it from Ma.”

Peter grinned. “You probably shouldn’t keep them waiting much longer.”

“You’re right.” Antonio nodded, took a slow breath, and then turned and walked away. He paused just before leaving Peter’s aggro field and turned to call over his shoulder, “Thanks, Spider-man! Come over for lasagna anytime!”

Peter waved, and Antonio jogged off until he was out of sight. Notification boxes popped up in front of Peter.

Reform Successful!

+250 exp

+25 coin

It was half of what he usually earned, which meant it was being split between him and Deadpool, despite the crazed mercenary not doing anything to actually help.

“What the hell was that?” Deadpool asked.

“A feature.” 

It wasn’t like the reform option was a secret. It was in the new player’s handbook that the information brokers had. However, most people felt it was a waste of time, so they ignored it to the point that many forgot it was even there. Further, of the people Peter had seen attempt it, they had failed to succeed and thus deemed it an unnecessary role-playing option.

Peter had failed a good half of his reforms when he first learned of them. Practice made perfect, however, and he could wrap things up pretty quick now, as he had with Antonio. It was worth it, in Peter’s opinion, because the NPCs who reformed remembered that. Having so many people in Queens wave at Peter with a smile could brighten even the worst of days.

“What if he decides to go back to being a criminal?” Deadpool argued.

“He won’t.” After nearly a year of reforming every villain he could, Peter was confident in that answer. That was just how the programming worked. “I’m calling the cops for the rest of these.”

Peter went around and tapped all the boxes available to send the rest of the men to jail. All the timers had triggered during Peter’s talk with Antonio, so it was completed in one fell swoop. Deadpool made a load of inappropriate comments at the cops, but since Peter had triggered the call, they ignored it. Once they were gone, Deadpool started squirming in his bindings.

“What is this stuff?”

“Webbing.” Peter turned and made his way back to the road. “It’ll time out in a couple hours. No more team-up today.”

“Wait!”

Peter didn’t.

“Spidey, wait!” Deadpool sounded desperate, and it made Peter smile, knowing the mercenary deserved his tied up fate.

“Don’t worry, you won’t be caught by another player. Nobody is cleaning up quests in College Point except me.” He waved over his shoulder. “But if someone _ does _find you, you should be nice.”

“But Spidey! I have so many important questions!”

_ As if I’m dumb enough to fall for that. _ “Goodbye, ‘Pool.”

Peter jumped up onto the nearest building and headed into the heart of the neighborhood without a backwards glance. If he pushed, he could probably clear out everything before sundown, and then come back to pick up the re-triggers for those he sent to jail next week. Hopefully, Deadpool would take a hint and leave Peter to it.

Soloing really was a lot less of a headache.

~*~

05/2023

Team Spider had just successfully participated in their first raid with five other teams. They had mostly worked as support, but it had been valuable experience. Not everyone on the team were gaming veterans like Peter and Harry. In fact, Harry had been a die-hard gaming nerd since birth, managing to fail four classes throughout his life due entirely to his Nintendo Switch addiction. In contrast, Gwen had only bounced between a handful of Xbox games prior to returning to her second life on World of Warcraft.

On their way back to the nearest park, the group hit a few basic crime clusters, which Peter and Harry circled as the other three did the work, only intervening if they needed to. The girls were getting a lot better at thinking on their feet, but Miles lacked confidence. He was growing, but he found it difficult to overcome his fear of something going wrong. He’d confessed to Peter multiple times that he was an obsessive save point player because he died constantly in games. Peter could understand why that made Miles so nervous.

Afterwards, they stopped to pick up food from this place or that, still a little jittery despite all the activity. Everyone was tired but excited that the raid had allowed them to reach their current goal, earning them enough coin at long last. Peter watched Gwen and Miles chase each other around a streetlamp as he went over the recent fight in his head, determining what he needed to coach everyone on next so their fighting techniques would get better.

“Sometimes you get this look on your face like you wish you could just do things on your own instead of suffering through helping us noobs,” Mary Jane teased.

Gwen whirled around, fists clenched and ready for a fight. “Fuck you, I’m great at this game!”

Peter held up his hands in a panic. “I didn’t say anything! MJ!”

Mary Jane just laughed as Gwen challenged Peter to a one-on-one. Harry put himself between the two of them. “No fights. And no soloing, either. It’s not safe.”

“_But I didn’t say anything_!” Peter defended again.

Miles crossed his arms with a pout as he turned on Harry. “What’s your excuse for tomorrow, then? We’re in a group. We could handle things on our own while you go shopping.”

“I’m not going _ shopping_,” Harry argued. “I’m going to go buy a guild hall, the one we _ all _picked out and have been working towards. Besides, you should enjoy your day off after a raid like that.”

“First of all!” Miles stuck his nose in the air. “It’s called a superhero hideout.”

“A guild’s a guild,” Harry replied automatically.

“Pretty sure the bat cave does not qualify as a guild hall,” Peter pointed out with a smirk.

“Exactly!” Miles crowed in triumph. “And second of all, _ we _could be shopping for decorations tomorrow, but you won’t let us.”

“Of course not,” Harry said. “You have terrible taste, and you’d waste all our coin.”

“I have great taste,” Miles and Gwen said at the same time.

Mary Jane bumped shoulders with Peter as the other three continued to bicker. “Wanna go check out that group claiming to be a band over in Central Park tomorrow? I hear they’re not bad.”

Peter’s chest warmed due to how much that sounded like a date. His crush on Mary Jane was growing steadily by the day, though he knew that he shouldn’t act on it. He was pretty sure she and Harry had a thing for each other. “Yeah, we can. Though I have no faith they can actually play Fall Out Boy.”

“It’ll at least entertain the children,” she nodded at Gwen and Miles who were currently making faces at Harry.

“Gwen’s technically older than you, ya know,” Peter pointed out.

Mary Jane rolled her eyes. “Tell that to her fart jokes.”

Peter laughed. He was really looking forward to all of them relaxing tomorrow. And yes, though he did prefer soloing, he would never admit to it because he wouldn’t trade his team for anything in the world.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun fact: teleportation crystals are common items in SAO but not MO. Funny how something so small is considered normal in one game but can feel like cheating in another.
> 
> In case you didn't catch the link, the Maggia was Marvel's decision to not insult the Mafia by directly using their name. Since I needed an organized crime group for low-level criminals, I chose to use them.
> 
> The details I have put into this gameplay makes me feel bad for the pretend game designers who had to code it all in there.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If my family could stay out of the hospital/stop having procedures where I have to drive them and stay with them so I can get some writing done, that'd be great. It's been a long 3 weeks for me, guys.

** 09/2024 **

“Back so soon?” Peter asked as he slipped into the seat across from Johnny.

“Soon?” Johnny scoffed. “Those were the longest two months of my life.”

They were at [Raoul’s](http://raouls.com/) in [SoHo](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SoHo,_Manhattan), a restaurant Johnny claimed to have the best food in the game. That wasn’t true, of course. Aunt May had the best food in the game, but only Peter was privy to that knowledge. Not to say Raoul's wasn’t good, it was, but Peter was convinced Johnny liked to pick it because of the nude painting that took up most of one wall.

“I hear you’re not done,” Peter said as he looked over the brunch menu.

“To say the least. They really packed in the Bosses there. You’re missing out on some great loot, though. It wouldn’t hurt to join the front lines for a week or so.”

Peter rolled his eyes. “Yes, it would. Tony would badger me non-stop about joining his team.” It was something Tony did to all the strong players, and, for better or worse, Peter was a strong player and one of the last soloing at his level.

“It’s safer on a team, especially with how things are going now that we’re getting into the higher Boss levels.”

“Sure.” They both knew why Peter had no intention of joining a team again, and Johnny was polite enough not to push it.

“Man, I’ve missed this place.” He turned to look at the large nude painting and let out a dreamy sigh. “Bless these female-presenting nipples.”

Peter snorted. “The museums have nude art as well.”

“But it’s all jumbled together with dicks!” Johnny protested. “And they don’t serve food.” Before Peter could reply, Johnny stuck his hand in the air and waved at the door. “Over here!”

A moment later, Sue Storm joined them. She gave Peter a quick hug before taking the seat next to her brother. The strangest part about their situation was that they weren’t siblings only because they chose the same last name for their avatars. No, they were related in real life.

Sue had preordered the game as a surprise after hearing her brother rave about it during the beta test. She chose the name Storm to match his character. Johnny hadn’t known that she was in the game for nearly two months before she caught up to him. Since then, he had been obsessively watching out for her, and vice versa, the both of them desperate to keep the other alive.

“Reed’s not joining us?” Johnny asked.

“He’s stuck in meetings with the other team heads,” Sue said as she flagged down a server. “I’m not waiting on him.”

“You two are the picture of marital bliss,” Johnny deadpanned.

Peter laughed, and Sue smacked Johnny with her menu before they all began placing their orders. Johnny hadn’t been too happy when Sue first decided to marry Reed Richards, but he had _ mostly _ gotten over that. Not many players took advantage of the marriage function in the game. It was a risk, having a shared inventory and bank, but it was also the highest level of trust one could offer since the death of one person meant the other would acquire everything, not just what was equipped.

Understandably, Johnny had been terrified for his sister’s safety after learning of their engagement, but Reed was a good man who had been teamed up with Johnny and Sue for over a year. Peter and Ben had intervened and talked Johnny down from outright trying to murder Reed, and thus landed themselves as best men at the small wedding ceremony. Ben had cried, which had been fascinating to watch as the graphics tried to correlate that with the rock-like skin he’d acquired during an event run.

Unbidden, a question floated up through Peter’s mind. _ Do Reed and Sue know about the sex option in the game? Did they have sex on their honeymoon? _ Peter shook the thoughts from his head and scrambled for something to distract him.

“I saw in the Daily Bugle that there was a duel Boss incident,” Peter said.

Johnny groaned. “That was the worst fucking day. It was all Team Brotherhood’s fault.”

“Don’t point fingers,” Sue chided.

“They strayed too far from the rest of the teams!”

“And normally it wouldn’t have been that far at all. Staten Island is just too packed of a borough.”

Johnny grumbled but was distracted when their food arrived. A few bites in and his mood shifted easily, a content smile pulling at his face. “The problem is that we need more people.”

Sue shrugged while cutting up her frittata into small bites. “We’re fine as we are so long as we pace ourselves.”

“More people means clearing things faster, and that’s the whole damn point.” Johnny turned to Peter for support. “You know any teams willing to go behind the big boys and clear out all the basic crime?”

Peter tapped his fork against his lips as he thought about it. “Daredevil might be interested, but I hear Team Defenders is taking a break for some personal stuff.”

“Doesn’t Team Defenders have that guy with the gold charge attack?” Sue asked.

“Iron Fist? Yeah,” Peter confirmed.

“Who fights with only fists these days?” Johnny made a face.

“Hey! _ I _ still fight mostly hand-to-hand.”

“_ You _ have that sticky shit.”

“Webbing.”

“Yeah, that. Everyone needs at least one distance or immobilizing skill. It’s dumb not to.” Johnny waved his fork around as if it helped him emphasize his point. “And an escape route! Your wall-crawling is genius.”

“Thank you, Grand Poobah, for acknowledging me.”

Johnny pointed his fork at Peter’s face with a hard look. “You’re fucking welcome.”

Sue whacked Johnny with her fork, and Peter snorted. He hadn’t realized how much he needed this. Things had been stressful lately, and since most of his friends were too busy to even take a phone call, he’d been surprisingly lonely. Going to brunch was just the kind of pick-me-up he needed to feel like himself again.

“How long do you think you’ll be in town?” Peter asked.

“We decided to take a week off,” Sue said. “Despite some of us complaining.”

“Me.” Johnny pointed at himself. “I complained. Week-long vacations is what corporate America does, not superheroes.”

“Please don’t start this argument again,” Sue groaned.

Peter smirked. “I just give myself days off whenever I want them. Like today, for example.”

“You’re a little shit,” Johnny said as if announcing the weather, which only caused Peter to smile more.

The three of them chatted and laughed, Peter listening to their stories about the strange new Bosses that the front lines had encountered. People flowed in and out of the restaurant, and more passed by along the sidewalks outside. At one point, Peter found himself just watching the city life, chin in hand, smile on his lips.

“Sometimes it feels so… normal,” Sue said, looking out the window as well. “So real.”

“It was Reed that said it was dangerous to think like that,” Johnny replied, though there was no passion to his words. “‘Gotta stay focused. Our bodies are probably withering away,’” he quoted in an overly snobby tone.

A small smile pulled at Sue’s lips. “Yes, well, we balance each other. I remind him to live the life he has right now, and he keeps me from getting lost.”

Peter often felt like he had become lost to this world long ago. He watched as someone spooked a flock of pigeons into flight before murmuring, “All things come to an end eventually.” And he would know better than most.

~*~

“The front lines?” Jessica pulled a face. “There’s a reason I didn’t sign up for that shit.”

Jessica Jones and Peter Parker knew each other outside of their masks, even though they rarely teamed up. What had caused the strange and sudden friendship between them was the random discovery that they had gone to the same college in the real world. She was three years his senior, so they’d only overlapped one year and had no memory of running into each other. Still, it was something they’d been unable to help bonding over.

“I know Team Defenders are on a break, but it doesn’t hurt to ask,” Peter said, leaning back in the recliner that sat beside the sliding glass doors of her apartment.

“You say that, but you’re not going either.”

Peter bit back a laugh. “I might go for a week sometime…”

“Liar.”

Luke walked over and offered some coffee, his large, looming form staring down at Peter. “You’re only getting my recliner because you’re a guest.”

Peter grinned and toasted his mug at Luke. “You’re a charitable man.”

“Stop,” Jessica grumbled as she stretched out on the couch. “It’ll go to his head.”

“I am but a humble man,” Luke argued, taking the seat beside his girlfriend.

They had been together longer than Sue and Reed had, and perhaps had an even better relationship in some ways, but they chose not to get married. Not for trying on Luke’s part. He’d argued that getting married would make sure Jessica had all his items and coin if something happened to him — that she would be taken care of in whatever way he could offer. That reasoning had promptly caused Jessica to decline, claiming that he’d have to try harder to stay alive if there were no “benefits to his death.”

“Don’t talk to me about Staten Island,” Jessica insisted. “What’s going on over in Queens? Anything interesting?”

_ Oh, just being stalked by an unknown mercenary. No big deal. _ He couldn’t say that. Jessica would lock him inside her office until she found a way to kill Deadpool. Peter offered a bland smile. “Nothing much. Everyone’s just being careful to not trigger anything too big, so I’ve been sticking to cleaning out open neighborhoods.”

“Pickings are slim these days,” Luke mused. “There are more people headed to Queens because of it. I worry that people are going to start pushing too far.”

“There are still event runs to distract them. In fact, there’s an event in [Jackson Heights](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jackson_Heights,_Queens) that they’ve been keeping open. Some mini-Boss is going around making NPCs sick, and players get bonus experience and coin for taking them to the hospital.”

“But that’s what I mean.” Luke frowned in that way he did when lost in thought. “Even event runs have difficulty boosts for each Boss defeated. Eventually, that mini-Boss they’ve been ignoring won’t be so mini.”

“This game isn’t designed for slackers,” Jessica agreed. “It’s designed to force everyone to continue leveling to survive.”

Luke nodded. “Which is why I don’t think we should take the cleared neighborhoods for granted. What if we reach a level that resets all criminal activity?”

“Then the Staten Island plan will be pointless.” Jessica shrugged.

Peter frowned and sipped at his coffee. The downside to visiting Jessica and Luke was that they made him consider things he normally wouldn’t — and, inevitably, unintentionally, made him feel guilty. Part of him feared for all those that would be affected if there was a reset like Luke theorized. Another part, the guilty part, was excited at the prospect. As a solo player, he thrived on all the new things to discover.

“There’s also been an increase of abuse to NPCs,” Luke said.

“That’s because people are bored and full of rage at their circumstances with no proper outlet or available therapy.” Jessica’s face took on a zen quality. “I would know.”

“What if we trigger something from the NPCs, though?” Luke argued. “We don’t know everything that can happen in this game, and Peter has already proven that they are capable of expanding beyond their initial programming.”

Luke had been one of the only players to actually listen and care when Peter had tried to share that knowledge with others. Jessica never said anything to upset either on them on the subject, but it was obvious she considered the information as low priority in the grand scheme of things. She didn’t care about computer consciousness theories.

“If we’re going to talk ‘expanding beyond programming,’ then NPCs learning new curse words isn’t the only issue,” Jessica pointed out. “That Weapon X event disappeared, remember?”

“Yeah…” Peter mumbled, thinking over what little information he’d received on it from Mockingbird.

“And that’s not the first time it’s happened.”

“It’s not?” Peter and Luke asked at the same time.

“No!” Jessica sat forward, forearms on splayed knees, intent on her story. “A while back there was this place in Queens that players could go. Some random house that acted as a safety zone. It had an event sign over it called Aunt Jemima’s or something.”

“That’s a syrup,” Luke cut in.

Jessica waved him off. “My point is, the NPC in there wasn’t constrained to common responses, and nobody had to teach her what to say. She acted like a WebMD therapist.” Jessica looked at Peter. “You’ve stuck mostly to Queens since the borough opened up. Did you ever run across that place?”

Peter held his mug up to his face, desperately trying to hide behind it. “Nope. Never did.”

“Well, it was obviously supposed to be part of the game. The few times I visited, the NPC was handing out cookies to players too emotionally broken to continue fighting, like she was watching over them until they could recover. Plus, walking into the house immediately knocked you into your secret identity, and you couldn’t access any skills or weapons.”

Even the parks would allow players to practice skills, though they had no effect unless two players were in a duel. That was why Aunt May’s was so unique, so safe. Everything in the house, including her, was an immortal object. Players couldn’t hurt each other or themselves while in that space. It was an invaluable location.

“I’ve never seen a place like that before,” Luke said, brows furrowed.

“That’s the point,” Jessica said. “It’s _ gone. _ Nobody’s been able to find it since. Why would someplace obviously built into the game just disappear?”

Peter guzzled coffee, hoping that his poker face was steady. As close as he was with all his friends, he couldn’t tell them about Aunt May. She _ was _ different. Just like Jessica said, she was an AI made to assist players through difficult times, a small mercy offered by the game’s creators. Peter had visited her with more and more frequency after discovering the building just a few months into the game.

It was Aunt May that spurred his desire to start befriending NPCs. It was her kind words that helped him through feeling guilty about soloing when Team Spider wasn’t looking. And it was her that broke all the rules and accessed the overrides when he’d needed a family more than anything else in the world.

“Do you think there might be more NPCs out there like her?” Luke asked.

“I think it’s likely,” Jessica answered.

Aunt May had never mentioned if there were other AIs, but Peter hadn’t asked. Taking Aunt May from the other players was selfish of him, so he wanted to believe that there were others out there, assisting players like Aunt May once had. Though, if there were, could they also change the programming around them?

Could they delete an event and prevent it from respawning?

“We can always assume Galactus is still out there, altering the game how he sees fit,” Luke offered.

“Martin Goodman didn’t design a game,” Peter murmured, staring into his empty mug. There was a flashing icon over it, asking if he wanted to refill it. “He designed the comic world of his dreams, full of flaws and the unexpected. It’s the game that’s supposed to surprise us. So why would he change it for arbitrary reasons?”

“Why does that psycho do anything?” Jessica said, voice hard. “Don’t try to guess a psychopath’s thought process.”

Peter didn’t believe that Goodman was a psychopath, or evil, or anything like what others said he was. The truth of the matter was that Peter understood the intense need to live in the world he was in. When he gazed out over the city, he knew that Goodman did the same. They loved this world, though Peter was unsure what that said about him.

He _ was _ sure about one thing: Goodman wouldn’t destroy something he’d painstakingly created in exacting detail.

So who did?

~*~

After a long day of hanging out with friends, Peter was ready to websling home, eat some great dinner, and jerk off until he fell asleep. He didn’t make it. And not for any good reason like helping out a player in need, or stopping for an upset NPC waving at him, or even to rescue a kitten from a tree. No, he stopped because someone was doing something weird.

Players did inane things all the time, and Peter was above gawking at them for it, but when the player in question was Deadpool, it was hard not to perch on a rooftop and stare.

_ I should move on. _ He knew that logically, but questions still swarmed his mind. Deadpool was a mystery, not only in his dichotomy of character but in his association with Weapon X. But even if Peter asked, he doubted that he’d get a straight answer.

So he continued to squat there and stare as Deadpool flailed his way along the sidewalk as if attempting to do terrible acrobatics midair. The occasional NPC took an unfortunate boot to the stomach before cursing and running off. Deadpool paid them no mind until he landed on some kid’s skateboard and launched the child into the air. Peter jumped from the building he was on, ready to rescue the NPC, but Deadpool beat him to it.

“Whoops! My bad!” Deadpool said as he caught the kid mid-air and set him on the ground, carefully rolling the skateboard back to its owner. Meanwhile, Peter shot a web to redirect himself to a perch atop a lightpost.

The kid eyed Deadpool suspiciously. “Are you a superhero?” The phrase was a common trigger from NPCs in the tween or under age range. The narrowed eyes and judgemental look was an evolved response.

“Probably not,” Deadpool replied with an easy shrug.

The boy snatched up his skateboard and ran off. Peter didn’t blame him. Deadpool watched the child for a moment before turning and tilting his head up at the occupied streetlamp.

“These sidewalks are too crowded!” Deadpool complained.

“What are you even doing?” Peter asked in response.

“Trying to double jump! Duh. I should be able to double jump in a game.”

“There are plenty of games that don’t allow double jumping.”

“Only terrible ones.” Deadpool leaped into the air and kicked his legs, arms pinwheeling as he dropped back to the sidewalk on his ass, knocking into a woman carrying groceries. She spewed a creative line of cursing that she must have picked up from other players before stomping away.

“Why are you still in Queens instead of the club?” Peter asked next.

“Why do _ you _ get to ask questions and not _ me _?” Deadpool shot back as he pulled himself to his feet.

Peter frowned. “You want to ask me questions?”

Deadpool turned to look up at Peter again, hands propped on his hips. “I want to know what that sticky stuff is!”

Peter held out his wrist and shot a glob of webbing onto Deadpool’s chest. “What, that?”

Deadpool tried to wipe it off, but his hand got stuck. He struggled against it, and Peter had to bite back a laugh. “No fair! How did you make this stuff?”

“Do you actually want to know or are you just complaining?” People asked about Spider-man’s webbing a lot, but it was always rhetorical. Nobody appreciated the engineering level he’d had to gain in order to make it.

“More questions!” Deadpool complained as he continued to struggle at removing his hand.

“Then I propose a trade,” Peter announced. “You answer one of my questions, and I’ll answer one of yours.”

Deadpool didn’t pause. “Fine! I don’t work for Hellfire Club. They just hire me as freelance when needed.”

“Oh.” Well, Peter _ had _asked the question, though he hadn’t expected Deadpool to just burst out with the answer so suddenly.

“Now answer mine!”

“Yours?”

“How did you make this?” Deadpool glared at the webbing that continued to hold his hand over his heart.

Wait… Deadpool was serious? “Uh… I mean, you have to have a high enough crafting and engineering level. There are materials that you need to combine. Glue, obviously, for the sticky quality, and then I added ten parts steel fragments to strengthen it.”

Deadpool pointed at the line of webbing still dangling from the lamppost under Peter. “Glue doesn’t look like that!”

“Oh, well, that’s where the webshooters come in. Everything that launches projectiles does so with a different movement, so if you use something sticky, it maintains the shape of the movement. So then I just have to combine the parts I want to create the shape I want.”

He was rambling. The excitement built in his chest and bubbled over out of his mouth, going into the details of the crafting techniques and how to work with the system to achieve the desired result. He absolutely loved that part of the game, how crafted materials were only limited to one’s own imagination. Being able to talk about it was such a rare opportunity because—

Because nobody cared that much about the game. Peter’s rambling on the technical aspects trailed off. First off, he shouldn’t be giving away his trade secrets to Deadpool no matter how excited he was to finally have a captive audience. Second, Deadpool was unusually silent. They stared at each other when Peter finally stopped talking, only the buzz of traffic and pedestrians filling the space between them.

“You’re different,” Deadpool said at last.

“So are you.” It was true. Deadpool didn’t act like any of the other players. Why was that? What had happened in his past? “I’ll trade you another question. Were you ever in the Weapon X event?”

Something in Deadpool changed. His relaxed, curious posture stiffened, and his free hand clenched, drawing up closer to the gun at his hip. Peter held his breath and focused on his _ spidey sense_, but it wasn’t triggering.

“I spent some time there, yeah.” It was said a lot more casual than Deadpool’s body language suggested.

“Do you know what happened to it?”

“That’s another question. I get mine first.”

“Alright.”

“Everyone I’ve met insists that there’s something different about heroes that makes them better, and that’s why it’s okay to kill everyone else. You don’t act like that. Why?”

Did Deadpool care about NPCs? The way he was jumping around and kicking people earlier said no, but then he’d also helped that kid… Was he conflicted? Did he feel guilty for hurting NPCs in the past only to find out they could start forming their own conscious responses? There were too many questions in Peter’s head now, and he hadn’t even answered the one given to him.

“I think everyone deserves a chance to live a good life, no matter how they started.”

Deadpool’s head cocked to the side. “Even me?”

Peter’s stomach sank. Would it be hypocritical of him to denounce Deadpool’s past when he consistently did criminal reforms? He didn’t stop to wonder if the NPCs would turn back to a life of crime or somehow remain untrustworthy. Why? If he said that it was because of their programming, he’d be just like everyone else who said NPCs weren’t worth their concern.

“That’s another question,” Peter blurted in response to give himself time to think of a better answer.

“That thing you did at the docks. It was because you learned the guy’s backstory and talked to him about it.”

It wasn’t a question. Peter answered it anyways. “Yeah.”

“Would that work on me?” Deadpool looked serious, and Peter wasn’t sure how to take that. Was this some elaborate joke? It had to be. If it wasn’t…

_ I’m not qualified for this. _ “That depends on if you let it.” Peter shot a web to another building and was already prepared to activate _ hyperspeed_. “I’ve got an appointment to keep, ‘Pool. Good luck.”

Before Deadpool could reply, Peter was gone. It was for the best. He needed time to think about their conversation and what, if anything, he should do in the future if they ran into each other again. _ I don’t have enough information to know if he’s serious or not. _ That was an eerie thing to realize since collecting personal information was exactly how the game handled reforms.

_ Which is just coding that mimics human behavior. You can’t help a person without knowing them. Ugh, wait. Does that mean I have to get to know Deadpool? _

That would be just his kind of luck.

“It’s not your responsibility,” he muttered to himself.

But wasn’t it? Isn’t that what heroes did — help people? Just because this wasn’t as easy and he wouldn’t get coin for it didn’t mean he should back down. Not to mention, if the issue with Deadpool was emotional or psychological trauma, then he deserved help — help which the game used to provide. Until Peter ruined it. So yeah, maybe he did have a responsibility to fill the gap he’d left when Aunt May was removed from her role in the game.

“You idiot. What have you gotten yourself into?” Peter scolded himself as he made his way home at last.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> At last! We can dive into shenanigans of these two hanging out. lol
> 
> Are there any other characters you're looking forward to seeing as we travel through the game? ^.^


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the long wait! I put off too many things until the end of the year. I'm sure you guys know how it is. lol

09/2024

The [Socrates Sculpture Park](https://socratessculpturepark.org) in [Astoria](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astoria,_Queens) was Peter’s favorite place in Queens. In real life, it was a place where artists could go to create their work for an audience and then display it among the five acres of lush, green grass. The system had an archive of all the art that had been displayed at the park, and occasionally cycled through them, which meant the sights to see were always changing.

To add to that, anyone with a high enough crafting skill could come to the player pavilions and create art to display as well. Sure, it was inevitable to see something phallic pop up, but many players saw the option as much needed stress relief. There were some true artists trapped in Marvel Online, and they made their presence known.

The park sat next to the water, the tall buildings of the city framing the rippling blue and growing green like a busy picture frame. Sculptures, paintings, and interactive setups were sprinkled throughout the area. Players and NPCs alike traveled the grounds, chatting happily, staring up at the artworks, or strolling through the waves lapping at the sandy beach.

Near the water was a thirty-foot curved [pyramid](https://socratessculpturepark.org/exhibition/pyramid/) with multiple tiers, all filled with various flowers and plant life. Peter made his way over. Nobody else was nearby except for Deadpool. Despite the fact that the parks were safe zones, Deadpool still looked dangerous enough to be wary of. Him managing to sing painfully off-tune even with the autotune function of the game probably wasn’t helping any.

“What’s yours and mine, the fishing’s fine, and it doesn't have to rhyme, so do you feed me a line! But yoooou!” Deadpool swayed his hips as he danced along, hands busy with something in front of him.

“That’s an [old song](https://youtu.be/ousaiByU1ko),” Peter said as he walked over and leaned back against the pyramid, arms folded in front of him. He looked over to see Deadpool’s hands holding a trowel and a bag of dirt, bright red flowers filling the section he was fiddling with. “What are you planting?”

“Spidey!” Deadpool grinned in greeting. “[Corn poppies](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papaver_rhoeas)! Don’t we match?” He leaned over and posed by the blood-red blooms with their black centers.

Thankfully, the mask hid Peter’s smile. “Sure.”

“It comes on the radio all the time,” Deadpool said as he stood straight and went back to tapping the various grassy sections with his trowel to make the flowers pixelate and grow.

“What?”

“The song. It’s like a radio staple.”

“I guess.” It wasn’t a song that played in the game, and Peter hadn’t listened to the radio much throughout his life, having more alternative music tastes. It was his mother that had liked the song, but he didn’t want to get lost in those memories at the moment. “So do you come here often?”

“Ha! That sounds like a pickup line.” Deadpool waggled his eyebrows and his mask somehow showed that. “You hittin’ on me, Webs?”

Peter felt the blush trigger and raged over it in his head. Who in real life actually blushed this much? One of the game designers had a blush fetish, damn it. “Right, well, I can leave.”

“Wait!” Wade whined. “Don’t be so homophobic just because you’re dating Cat Woman.”

Peter spluttered. “First of all! I’m bi. Second, Cat Woman is DC. Her name is Black Cat, and we are _ not _dating.” Not that Peter would mind, but Cat would never.

“Ohhh, so you’re the Batman in this scenario.”

“Absolutely not.” Peter pushed himself away from where he was leaning and paced around the pyramid to look at the flowers, needing to walk off his annoyance. Maybe this whole “befriending Deadpool” thing was a bad idea.

Deapool’s mask popped around the corner, causing Peter to flinch. “So are you gonna tell me how that thing works?”

“The reform?”

“Yeah, yeah!”

“Uhhh… Well, first you have to collect information on the criminal’s backstory—”

“Cool!” Deadpool’s head disappeared and there were a few more rapid chimes as he worked on the flowers. Peter walked around the corner in time to see the last of the dirt used and the trowel being put back into Deadpool’s inventory. “I’ve always wanted to do this, so we can get started right away!”

“Started?” Peter wasn’t keeping up. Did Deadpool want to practice on criminals thinking it would help him? That just sounded like avoiding the problem. Man, therapy was harder than it looked. “So you want to fight crime together again,” Peter said, sounding as defeated as he felt.

“Who cares about them?” Wade scoffed. “We have to find my backstory. So let’s get to it!”

“Your backstory?” Peter’s head spun, torn between being baffled at the statement and angry that Deadpool had turned this whole thing into some elaborate joke.

“And then you can do that thing like with the guy at the docks!” Deadpool turned to look at Peter with what appeared to be genuine excitement.

Something finally clicked into place, and Peter’s stomach dropped. “Deadpool…” Peter paused to suck in air. “What do you remember from before?”

“Before?” Deadpool cocked his head. “Before what? Like before Weapon X? I mean, sometimes I think I remember things when I remember things.” He tapped a finger to his chin and hummed. “It’s all full of holes, though.” His mood shifted abruptly as he placed hands on his hips and grinned. “But that’s what my backstory is for!”

“Right…” Peter really needed to sit down but somehow remained standing. He was definitely _ not _ qualified for this. Did Deadpool really not remember life before the game? What had happened to him in that event? “Do you remember what Weapon X did—”

“That’s not my backstory!” Wade was suddenly angry, hands hovering over his weapons like there was danger everywhere, like the safe zone had disappeared. “I don’t need to talk about that!”

Peter held up his hands placatingly. An NPC couple nearby stopped in their tracks and turned to briskly walk in another direction. It was clear that whatever had happened during Weapon X had indeed been traumatic. Deadpool wasn’t ready to deal with that yet. Peter needed a different angle.

“It helps to know any little thing you might remember, no matter how far back.”

Deadpool grumbled and paced back and forth a few times, hands clenching and unclenching. “I told you! I don’t remember anything.”

“That’s not true,” Peter replied, pitching his voice to be calm and reasonable. “You remembered the Golden Girls.”

“Well, yeah. Of course I remember that. Who doesn’t?” Deadpool scratched at his neck, his head jerking around randomly as he tried to track everyone in the park.

“So, that means you watched it,” Peter reasoned. “Who did you watch it with? Or where?” If he could get Deadpool focused long enough to follow the string of a memory, then maybe it would help.

“Uh?” Deadpool stopped and rubbed the back of his head. “Knee jerk reaction? I wanna say with my mom, but I don’t remember anything about her.”

“What kind of TV did you watch it on?”

Deadpool’s mask scrunched in concentration. “I don’t know! Is this important to my backstory? That other guy talked about his girlfriend and money and his mom. Hey! We should totally find my mom. I bet she’s the first clue. You’re good at this!” He whirled around to face Peter once more. “Where do we start?”

This was bad. This was _ very _bad. Peter hadn’t heard of a player breaking down to the point of losing memories. Then again, the game was connected straight to a person’s brain. If some bad coding or virus happened at the Weapon X event while Deadpool was still in it, would that have caused damage to the man’s brain? If so, what was Peter supposed to do about that?

“Spidey?”

Peter looked up, realizing that he’d been lost in his own thoughts for too long. “Sorry, um, I just… I’m not sure what to do.”

“What do you mean? We just follow the trail like the other guys!”

“It…” Peter slowly shook his head. “It doesn’t work like that. Not for you.”

That anger and agitation was back in an instant. “What do you mean not for me?” Deadpool threw his hands in the air, his posture becoming increasingly aggressive as he stepped closer. “You said it would work if I wanted it to! Are you just messing with me?”

“No!” Peter insisted. “That’s not what I mean. Look, you’re not a common criminal—”

“Yes, I am!” Deadpool shouted. “I’ve done bad stuff just like the rest of them! That’s the fucking point!”

“They’re just running on code!” Peter shouted back, not sure where to go from here. “That’s not the same.”

“What the hell?” Deadpool’s nose scrunched in disgust. “I thought you weren’t like the others, but there you are, insisting that only _ heroes _ are ‘real people.’ You make me sick!”

“‘Pool!” Peter snapped, his heartbeat felt too loud and too fast. “NPCs can develop personalities, yes, I’m not arguing that, but you’re still not an NPC. You don’t work like they do. You’re a _ player. _ You started your life outside of this game.”

For a time, Deadpool just stared and said nothing. Abruptly, he turned and stalked back over to the pyramid of flowers, hands clutching at the square pots and muttering to himself. Peter watched in concern. Did Deadpool really think he was just part of the game? That wasn’t possible. He used skills like all the other players, he never used pre-set phrases or actions, his interaction screen was clearly that of another player, and he made constant references to the outside world. Had someone told Deadpool that he wasn’t human after his memory loss?

If someone had, Peter really wanted to kick that person’s ass. He couldn’t imagine what it must have felt like to lose all the memories that made him who he was and after seeking help, be told that he wasn’t even real. No wonder Deadpool was a mess that struggled with morals. And the only person that had even taken the time to figure it out was Peter.

“So are you saying I can’t be changed?” Deadpool asked. He sounded not just defeated, but like he’d been expecting that the whole time.

“I still think you can be whoever you want to be,” Peter insisted. “It’s just going to be a little different getting there. It’ll be a lot more work.”

“Like an event?”

“Something like that.” Peter walked over and placed a careful hand on Deadpool’s back. The man didn’t react, leaving Peter to hope it was at least a little reassuring. “We’ll need to work on your memories, but I’m afraid there’s not much we can do in the game to help that.”

“Then how do I remember anything?”

“Talking, mostly.” Peter wasn’t sure how to help jog lost memories either. All he knew was unreliable stuff from media, like take them to familiar places. Except, Peter didn’t know what would be familiar to Deadpool, and even if he did, they wouldn’t be able to get there trapped as they were in Marvel Online. Maybe Aunt May would have some insight.

Deadpool sucked in a deep breath and leaned back to stare at the blue sky overhead. “At least talking is something I’m good at. I’m the Merc with the Mouth, ya know.”

Peter smiled. “Yeah, I gathered that.” He moved his hand up to squeeze Deadpool’s shoulder. “I know some things might be upsetting to remember, so we can take it slow, but it’s important that we keep at it.”

“So you still want to help?” Deadpool murmured, still not looking at Peter.

“Of course I do!” Even without Peter’s obligation towards the mental health of players, he wanted to be here. If the cost for being a hero was to be Deadpool’s friend, then that was a small price to pay. Deadpool needed a friend, and honestly, so did Peter. If Deadpool was guided in the right direction, then that would make the game just a little bit safer. And there was nobody else around but Peter to do that.

“Alright,” Peter said as he turned them to face each other. “Let’s start with this: can you tell me where your hometown is?”

“Mmm,” Deadpool squinted as he thought hard. “My gut instinct says Regina, but that may be for different reasons.”

“Because it sounds like vagina?”

“Heh. Heh. Heh. Regina.”

Peter took a steadying breath. Okay, this might be harder than originally planned. “Maybe we can work our way backwards after finding a starting point. We just have to find something that’s recognizable from before W—” Deadpool tensed and Peter stopped himself, “from before. So I guess that means exploring the city. We’ll start near Central Park and Harlem, then work our way out from there.”

“I have an important question.”

“Yes?”

“How many people in Harlem do the Harlem Shake?”

Peter sighed and turned around to start walking. “Come on. Better to get started sooner rather than later.”

“I’m getting the distinct impression that you may not like my humor!” Deadpool announced as he jogged to Peter’s side.

“Whatever would give you that idea?” Peter drawled.

**Monday**

“What the shit is this?” Deadpool aggressively shook the package in front of the store clerk’s face.

The man behind the counter stared with a bored, unaffected expression. “A Sandwish brand mystery meat on rye.”

Deadpool rapidly smacked his finger on the giant lettering that decorated the front. “This says _ S-class Quality_, but it is not S-class. It does not even _ look _ like S-class food, and it certainly doesn’t _ taste _ like it. This is a package of LIES!”

Peter awkwardly stood behind Deadpool in the small convenience store, embarrassed and unsure of what to do or why this was even an issue. People were staring. Why did Deadpool have to be like this?

“The quality is comparable to S-class,” the clerk droned. “Sandwish brand makes no false claims about the products used. The ingredient list is on the back.”

“_Mystery meat _ does not have _ ingredients_! This is Spam!”

“No, sir. It is a Sandwish.”

“Spam by any other name is still mysterious!”

“‘Pool!” Peter interrupted. “How is this relevant to your past?”

“This is relevant for the future!” Deadpool announced and proceeded to toss the Sandwish into the air and shoot it.

**Tuesday**

“_How_?!” Peter demanded from where he clung to the side of a building, five stories up, with his feet and butt supporting him to leave his hands free for gesticulating wildly.

“I tried to make your webshooter thing!” Deadpool said, sounding mildly proud of himself despite the situation. “But it exploded.”

“That means your engineering level isn’t high enough,” Peter called over the flurry of manic flapping.

“Oh.”

“_Why _ did you test it near so many pigeons?!”

“I wanted to make a net! It was kinda successful, you gotta admit,” Deadpool grinned as he twirled in the breeze before getting slammed into the side of the building and sliding awkwardly along the glass panels. Peter crawled after him. “Who knew a hundred pigeons could lift me? I feel like there’s a Monty Python joke in here somewhere.”

So far as Peter could parse the series of events, Wade had attempted to make a webshooter with a wide net design to catch a bunch of pigeons, caught half his body during the ensuing glue explosion, and the entrapment startled the entire flock of pigeons into flight. Considering that pigeons were not animals that provided any coin, they couldn’t be killed or altered, which meant their flight programming still worked despite the glue attached to them.

Thus, a mostly mummified Deadpool was being airlifted by a giant flock of angry pigeons.

“How long did you set the glue trap to hold?” Peter asked as he attempted to keep up with Deadpool’s erratic flight.

“You can set a limit?” Deadpool asked, sounding genuinely surprised.

Peter groaned. This was going to be a long day.

**Wednesday**

“What does this have to do with anything?” Peter shouted over the rush of wind.

He had his legs spread shoulder-width apart and knees bent for balance. Still, he occasionally had to hold his arms out to re-center himself as they took a turn. His feet were clinging to the top of the train car as hard as they could. On the elevated tracks, they had quite an interesting view of the city rushing by.

Deadpool was surfing just up ahead, his boots occasionally slipping, but ultimately staying upright. “I’m pretty sure I rode a train in a past life!”

“I’m pretty sure it wasn’t like this! And I don’t care about your past life, I care about _ this _ life,” Peter snapped in response.

“Wooo!” Deadpool jammed his fists over his head, tilted his face to the sky and whooped his excitement repetitively. “I'm the king of the world!” He slipped right after that, to nobody’s surprise but his own.

Peter webbed Deadpool to the side of the train as he fell. Once trapped, he looked down at the webbing covering his chest, then his dangling feet, then back up to Peter. “I’ll be honest, this feels less like a compression shirt and more like a super-secure sports bra.”

Deadpool spent the rest of the ride trapped to the train as Peter tried to talk himself out of giving up and going home.

**Thursday**

Peter had declared it “No More Shenanigans” day and brought them to Central Park. There was a decent band set to play some classic popular songs. As far as Peter could tell, Deadpool enjoyed pop music, so perhaps it would jog some memories. After the past three days, Peter was desperate for some sort of progress.

The band was set to play at the [Naumburg Bandshell](https://www.centralpark.com/things-to-do/attractions/naumburg-bandshell/), which was a location Peter particularly liked for the aesthetic. People milled about setting up chairs or picnic blankets pulled from their inventory. There was one player selling A-class hamburgers for a bit of extra money. NPCs were also taking advantage of the crowd, selling a variety of things. Peter kept his eyes out for any that came close so he could stuff food in his chatty companion’s mouth.

Deadpool had appeared relaxed upon entering the park, but the more the crowd grew, the antsier he became. As should come as no surprise to anyone, especially Peter, when Deadpool became nervous or uncomfortable, he rambled.

“People are showing up like this is a BTS concert. You think I can crowd surf? Free Bird! Did you know people got so used to yelling that, crowds would scream it _ at _ Lynyrd Skynyrd _ while _ they were playing it because nobody actually knew what the song was?”

“Have you been to a lot of concerts?” Peter cut in, hoping that this would jog some kind of memory.

Like usual, Deadpool just avoided the question. “This is not a concert. This is an affront to the very name of concertdom.”

“Look, these guys work really hard to provide bits of our old lives—” Peter tried, annoyed at Deadpool’s comments, but he didn’t get to finish.

“Are those trashcans? This is straight up Stomp territory.”

“Stomp?”

“That’s percussion group, you know!” Deadpool started enacting it complete with sound effects that would have him spitting constantly were they not in a game.

Peter had a vague memory of a commercial when he was a kid about a group on tour that played trash cans. Were they called Stomp? How long ago was that?

“Wait, wait, wait,” Peter interrupted Deadpool’s terrible drumline impression. “How old are you?”

Deadpool shrugged. “Judging by what’s under this mask, I’d say late twenties, early thirties.”

“I don’t mean in-game.” Peter took hold of one of Deadpool’s wrists to stop the erratic movements. “Stomp, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Golden Girls, those are all old things. You should definitely be older than me.”

With a scoff, Deadpool yanked his arm away and began pacing the area. “I told you, I don’t know!”

“But you’re also not _ trying_!” Peter snapped in return, following close behind. He was exhausted and annoyed and it hadn’t even been a full week. Deadpool refused to take a moment and _ think _ about anything. How were they supposed to make any progress?

“You think I don’t want to find my backstory?” Deadpool growled, his shoulders curling and body tensing as his anger grew.

“I know you do, but that means you actually have to stop and think about things, even if they’re painful.”

Deadpool whirled around, getting in Peter’s face and screaming, “Weapon X isn’t my backstory!”

Annoyed, Peter leaned forward as well, refusing to be intimidated. “The pop culture references _ are_, so why are you afraid of those too?”

“I’m not afraid!”

“You are!”

They were causing a scene, the crowd around them turning to stare. Peter pulled back, self-conscious about it and also not wanting to convince people that Deadpool was some crazed aggressor. The man was hurt and upset, and it would do for Peter to remember that as well. _ Fuck, I am not cut out for this. He needs professional help, not me. _

“Don’t want people to know about your side project?” Deadpool bit out, one hand gesturing at all the eyes Peter was shying away from.

“You’re not a project,” Peter said, desperately trying to grapple against the urge to get angry in response.

“No, I’m just some annoying criminal.” Deadpool turned and stomped away, heading for an exit that would lead him back into the city. Peter took a steadying breath before following, ignoring the looks they were getting.

“I _ want _ to help you, but I need you to work with me, not get distracted by every little thing.”

“This is NYC! There’s nothing _ but _ distractions!” Deadpool flailed his arms around to indicate all that was around them.

“Stop making excuses, ‘Pool, I—”

“Wade,” Deadpool said, coming to an abrupt stop. His shoulders sank and he stared straight ahead at nothing. “Wade Winston Wilson. That’s my name. My secret identity. You think it’s my real name? You think I picked it for the classic alliteration?”

Hearing that reminded Peter of Miles, which was like a punch to the gut. He was so overwhelmed with memories, that he had no idea what to say in response.

Deadpool turned his head just enough to cast a glimpse behind him. “It sounds a little too generic, don’t you think? In fact, everything about me is unbalanced. Almost like I’m not something anyone would pick, just a random roll of the dice.”

“Don’t think that—”

“Why not? Everyone else does, including the game.”

That time, when Deadpool walked off, Peter allowed it. What was he supposed to say? How was he supposed to argue anything Deadpool came out with? Peter was still just as broken as he was years ago. He couldn’t possibly help someone else through their trauma, especially not someone like Deadpool.

Peter was powerless, useless, and the one left behind. Like always.

**Friday**

Peter was patrolling alone, trying to clear his mind and find that sense of peace he normally did when he was soloing and saving NPCs. The ghost of Deadpool’s issues loomed over him and refused to let him be. The guilt clung to him in sticky trails as he webslung through the city, desperately trying to outrun it.

It wasn’t his responsibility to fix everyone, he told himself. Usually, he did a better job at convincing himself of that. He wasn’t qualified. He could do more harm than good if he kept getting angry and yelling at Dea—Wade whenever the man couldn’t remember things. The worst part was, there was a painful worm of doubt digging into the back of his mind with every interaction.

Was Wade really a player?

Of course he was! He had to be. He had a secret identity. The interaction screens looked the same. He knew more about pop culture than anyone else Peter had ever met.

_Aunt May knows far more than any person should as well, all because she’s a_—

_ No! _ If Peter doubted, then Wade would doubt. There was no point in assuming Wade was anything than what he was. What point was Wade’s role in the game otherwise? Wade had to be a player, and one Peter couldn’t help, and one Aunt May couldn’t help because Peter was too selfish to bring anyone home with him and ruin his sanctuary.

Gunshots broke through Peter’s inner turmoil. He altered course and headed in that direction. He could use a fight to help distract him, and getting the experience wouldn’t hurt. He’d taken a much longer break from grinding than expected due to the strange events of the week. If he wanted to keep his level up, he needed to refocus.

The noise came from an alleyway between to a warehouse and an unnamed storefront. Based on experience, Peter knew that was the game’s indication of organized crime. Players could go into criminal dens, yes, but it was suicide, everyone knew that. So Peter was confident it was the information gathering phase of an event triggering and not a player caught up in the mess.

However, because life was never easy on him, he swung around a corner to find that the cause of the shootout was Deadpool. He stood in the middle of a group of Maggia goons who were all trying to gun him down. Worst of all, he wasn’t taking cover. He was screaming unintelligibly at the criminals, shooting random bullets that did nothing, and running right into the line of fire to punch Maggia members in the face. His health bar was yellow and falling rapidly.

Peter panicked.

He leaped into the agro radius and fired webbing as fast as he could, immobilizing weapons and criminals alike. He rolled under a spray of gunfire as he made his way towards his target. Wade never saw it coming when Peter took firm hold of the man’s belt and bicep, threw himself backwards, planted his feet into Wade’s back, and launched the merc up into the air in one solid move.

Wade screeched when he went airborne, but Peter focused on the criminals around him. There were too many for him to take alone. It was definitely an impossible to win fight, meant only for eavesdropping, and nothing more. There had been so many of these kinds of events that had taught players the hard way not to charge into everything guns blazing. Peter himself had known a good ten players that had died thinking they could just punch their way through stacked odds.

It was for this reason that Peter knew better than to stay. He kicked an overturned trash can lid into a criminal running at him before diving behind a dumpster to avoid a line of bullets. He hefted the entire dumpster up and threw it at the additional men pouring out the back entrance of the warehouse. It bought him enough time to jump up onto the brick wall of the building beside him and run like hell.

Deadpool was on his downward arc just as Peter left the agro field of the event. He shot out multiple lines of webbing to help secure Wade before yanking hard. They slammed into each other and hit a rooftop with a heavy thump, rolling to a stop. Peter didn’t bother to check the small hit to his vitals. He just immediately sat up and pulled a medipack from his inventory and activated it on Wade, watching as the health bar rapidly slid back into the green.

It was only then that Peter noticed how fast he was still breathing, how tight his chest was. He knew that the software had triggered tears, but thankfully his mask hid them. Nausea roiled in his stomach, and his ears rang. He couldn’t hear the line of profanity and ranting that Wade was spewing as he struggled against the webbing, and Peter didn’t care.

“You could have died!” Peter shouted, voice raw and pinched. “Why? Why would you do that?”

“But I—”

“Stop it!” Peter screamed in return, unable to handle Wade’s usual string of commentary. He was drowning in emotions that weren’t Wade’s fault, but that didn’t stop their unrelenting force.

“Why are you—”

“Stop it!” Peter took hold of the straps on Wade’s outfit and shook as he curled forward, trembling under the weight of memories pressing through the wall he usually kept up against them. He ground his teeth and counted the stitches on the leather costume in front of him, on the digitized feeling of gravel beneath his knees, on taking longer breaths in and out. Just like Aunt May had taught him.

He wasn’t sure how long it took for him to calm down. Wade didn’t speak throughout it, not even to complain about his immobility and Peter’s occasional aborted jerking that had Wade’s head rattling around the rooftop. When Peter finally regained his senses enough to take stock, he found that both their health bars were full, maxed out by their own steady regeneration. They were alive and well.

“Spidey…” Wade whispered but trailed off, for once sounding unsure of what to say.

In a hushed voice, Peter said, “You’re not allowed to die.”

“I won’t,” Wade replied in a confidence Peter didn’t trust or understand.

“I can’t—” Peter swallowed hard. He wasn’t in a place where he could talk about this. Not here. Not now. He needed Aunt May. He needed his family. “Don’t take your life so lightly.”

And so, like the “hero” Peter had always truly been, he ran away. He left Wade on that rooftop without even remembering what street or what neighborhood they had been in. Peter ran and ran, swinging through buildings, focusing only on breathing. _ In and out. _ He ran to Aunt May’s, to a sanctuary he could pretend wasn’t part of the game where everyone was happy and alive, where it was full of good food and warm hugs, where he was safe and loved. He went home.

Where nobody ever left him behind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes I regret how complicated I made this story because there are sooo many details I have to pay attention to. lol
> 
> I hope you guys are looking forward to some catharsis next chapter!


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this update took so long. I really struggled to get this chapter right and ended up re-writing it a good three times. Also, enjoy all the new NYC landmarks. They're linked at first mention per usual. hehe

** 09/2024 **

There was a building in [Manhattan Valley](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manhattan_Valley) that had a view of [Riverside Park](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riverside_Park_\(Manhattan\)) and the [Hudson River](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hudson_River) beyond. The building was nondescript, no different from those around it. There was a nice view at the top, where only players with certain skill sets could reach, but a mediocre view from the windows below. It was overlooked often for more preferable places by player and NPC alike.

Thus, Peter would go there when he needed time alone.

He’d spent days locked away with Aunt May, ignoring the rest of the world — ignoring his responsibilities and the constant weight of the game. That couldn’t last forever, and though Aunt May was usually encouraging about Peter getting back out into the city, her worried silence on the subject had felt strangely heavy. Ultimately, it had run him from the house, claiming he was getting back to work. Aunt May’s bright smile was unearned.

Collecting reform information had been a bad idea. He had no mind for it, couldn’t remember what he was told, and was constantly reminded of Wade. Giving up, Peter had wandered the streets, kicking rats and half-heartedly fighting the few mutant rodents he came across. Eventually, he sought solace in the relative quiet of his favorite spot.

Which was why it came as such a surprise that someone walked up from behind and took a seat at his side.

“I saw you wandering aimlessly and followed you,” Wade muttered as he swung his legs over the side of the building, eyes fixed on the scenery.

Peter pulled his knees into his chest and wrapped his arms around them. He still had no idea what to say to Wade and being put on the spot offered no insights. He’d wanted to be alone for a reason. He didn’t like this continued feeling of uselessness and fear that Wade’s circumstances sparked in him. That was unfair to say — hell, it was unfair to even think it — but he was at a loss about what, if anything, he could do about it.

“Look, I’m really bad at being around people,” Wade admitted, his voice subdued in a way Peter had never heard before. “So I get that I probably fucked up a lot, but I don’t think I fully understand _ how_, so I can’t promise I’ll get better.”

It hurt to know that Wade was putting this blame all on himself when it was Peter that couldn’t handle things. “It’s not your fault.”

Wade swung his legs for a bit before answering, “Well, that doesn’t change anything.”

“I’m sorry,” Peter murmured. “I promised to help, but I don’t know how.”

“Not your fault either.” Wade shrugged. “You don’t have to worry so much about me.”

“I do, actually.” Peter frowned behind his mask. “You keep doing dangerous things. If you die here, that’s it. You don’t get to respawn. You have to be more careful!”

“I won’t, though.”

“Wade—”

“Spidey,” Wade turned to look at Peter, head tilted to the side. “You don’t know me, and we didn’t meet on good terms, so why are you so worried?”

“I do know you,” Peter scolded and rushed to continue when Wade tried to talk again. “And even if I didn’t, I wouldn’t just leave you to die.”

“Why not?” Wade sounded genuinely perplexed. “Nobody’s ever cared if I died or not before, so why do you?”

“We’re all stuck in this game together, so we should all be helping one another. That includes you.”

“All of the ‘real people,’ you mean.”

“No. We’re all in this world, and we are all growing as people, even the NPCs.”

There was a pause before Wade asked, “Do you think I’m an NPC?”

“I don’t,” Peter replied with confidence.

“Would it change things if I was?”

“You’re not,” Peter insisted, staring down Wade’s currently solemn mask. “But no, it wouldn’t change things.”

Wade stared as if waiting for the other shoe to drop. “Why not?”

Peter sighed and looked back out across the water. “You know, you’re supposed to answer one of my questions before I answer one of yours.”

They both knew that Wade had no intention of discussing Weapon X and the current silence confirmed that. Peter supposed there was no point in trying to get that story, not that he really wanted to tell his own without a fair trade. Talking about his past hurt. He just wanted to run and hide from it, but then, that was exactly what Wade was doing. Peter talked a big game for someone not willing to share his own pain.

“I used to be part of a team,” Peter said, voice quiet and as devoid of emotion as he could manage. “Team Spider. We had all been online friends for a long while, and we grew really close here, like a family. Our team leader was the mom friend and was always super careful about how we gained levels so that we were always safe.”

Wade didn’t ask _ “Where are they now?” _ but the question hung in the air between them. Peter stared at the sunlight glinting off the river as the locked door to his memories slid open, pulling him back to that day.

“Miles only wanted for us to learn how to work better as a team…”

** 05/2023 **

“Miles!” Mary Jane laughed as she chased after her excitable teammate. “Harry said to stay out of trouble.”

“We’re just taking a walk,” Miles insisted as he chased after rats. “Harry is going to take _ forever. _ Do you really want to be stuck in your room for the rest of the day?”

They had all gone to watch the concert in the park, which had been bearable. Still, many people had been in a good mood on such a sunny, spring day, and the energy had all of them restless. Miles had insisted on walking around to some food vendors and possibly searching for some other low-level groups to team up with for event runs.

Peter had actually hoped that the others would take advantage of the free time so he could sneak off again. Then again, he could still take a nap and head out at night. There were plenty of night owls and crime to be solved that late as well. Not that anyone on his team, especially Harry, knew that he was grinding solo.

“You look like you know where you’re going,” Gwen said to Miles, one suspicious eyebrow raised.

“What? What do you mean? We’re taking a walk, I’m telling you!” Miles had always been an awful liar.

Peter squinted into the distance. “Towards [Willis Avenue Bridge](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willis_Avenue_Bridge)?”

“Whaaat?” Miles drawled in obviously fake surprise. “Is that what’s over there?”

“Miles,” Gwen scolded. “Just tell us where we’re—”

“Peter!” a bright, cheerful voice interrupted, calling the attention of the group.

An NPC named Haruka hurried to intercept, an arm over her head as she waved excitedly. Peter felt the grin take over his face as he waved back. He really hoped that the graphics didn’t trigger a blush. His teammates would never let him live it down.

Haruka paused at a crosswalk and patiently waited for it to turn green, her programming not allowing her to jaywalk. At least, not yet. Peter made his way over so he could wait for her on the other side of the street. Miles groaned at the scene.

“Peter, c’mon! We don’t have time!”

“I thought we were just on a walk,” Peter pointed out with a smirk over his shoulder.

“Why waste time talking to the NPCs anyways?” Gwen asked. “Did you teach it new phrases? I’m not going to be impressed if you taught the computer how to cuss.”

Peter rolled his eyes. Gwen wasn’t being purposefully mean about it, she just didn’t understand — most players didn’t. Peter had a gut feeling about working with the NPCs and teaching them new things. He didn’t have a lot to show for it yet, but after meeting Aunt May, he knew what the potential could be. Not to mention, Haruka was _ really _ pretty—sweet! She was really sweet.

For the past month or so, Peter had been visiting Aunt May’s on a regular basis, though he’d run across the place a couple of months prior. She was amazing. With her help, he’d learned a lot of little background tricks to the game. The NPCs in the world were more than just set dressing and few other players were truly taking advantage of what they had to offer. Peter often felt like he was sitting on a goldmine of information.

More than that, Aunt May herself was the loving, mothering parental figure that sat patiently through whatever Peter or any other player had to say. She offered the best advice and made Peter feel like he always had a place to go when in need. He cherished that a lot, to the point that he’d been pretty quiet about her existence. Besides, he couldn’t explain to his team how he’d met Aunt May if he couldn’t explain why he was in Queens by himself in the first place.

Haruka hurried through the crosswalk and paused in front of Peter with an excited smile, her skirt gently swaying side to side, hands clasped in front of her. “It’s so good to see you,” she said, a programmed response from most NPCs when seeing players in their secret identities, but there was an inflection to it that was new. “How have you been?”

“Really good! You?” Peter shifted his weight side to side and told himself that he wasn’t nervous, nor was he redirecting his useless crush on Mary Jane onto Haruka. That’d be crazy talk! Gwen groaned at the scene.

“This is like falling in love with an anime character, you weeb,” Gwen called.

“Hey!” Miles defended. “You leave my Erza collection out of this.”

As the others bickered, Haruka responded, “Crime sure has been—” She paused and looked down at her feet with a shy smile before looking back up at Peter. “It’s so good to see you.”

Peter felt a rush of excitement at how she’d broken her normal response routine for him. He decided to try something new. Pointing at the flower clip she used to hold back the long hair framing her face, he said, “Pretty.”

She bit her lip and looked down at her hands, fidgeting, before bashfully pointing at the spider necklace Peter had splurged on. “Pretty,” she mimicked.

“Yeah!” Peter felt ready to jump for joy. He knew that it _ looked _on par with teaching a Furby how to say a new word, but that didn’t take into account her body language and her obvious desire to interact in new ways. “You want to try another w—”

Sirens blared and the sky went red.

Haruka covered her mouth with both hands, eyes going wide with fear. They all turned to see the tall, red cylinder reaching up to the clouds across the water. Peter placed a comforting hand on Haruka’s shoulder and offered a soothing smile.

“It’s okay,” he promised. “It may look close, but it’s in a different borough. It won’t cross to us.”

Her eyes flicked back and forth between the activated Boss over in the Bronx and Peter. She didn’t run like the other NPCs were or yell at him to hide or scream for a hero to help. She controlled her programming and stayed beside him, aware that the Boss circle was well beyond where they stood.

“Was this your plan?” Gwen asked, propping her hands on her hips, one foot tapping at the sidewalk as she narrowed her eyes at Miles. “Harry’s gonna lock us all up for this.”

Miles groaned in protest. “C’mon, guys! We’re well out of range. Look! Everyone’s gathering on the bridge to watch.”

It was true. A bunch of other players were piling onto the sides of the Willis Avenue bridge to watch the fight. As most Boss battles were planned for, the big frontline teams would announce when and where they would attack as a measure to keep other players safe. However, this resulted in many players running to the outskirts of a battle to watch.

“Team X-men is fighting!” Miles said, practically bouncing with excitement. “They’re known for balancing out abilities in their teamwork. Think of all we can learn by watching.”

MJ hummed as she scanned the other players gathering around the bridge. “He’s got a point.”

Gwen gripped her hair and tipped her head back, “Oh no! No! We can’t! I protest all of this!” she shouted dramatically before casually walking towards the bridge crowd, a slight skip in her step. “Let it be known that I argued when Harry lectures us later.”

“Yes!” Miles fist pumped and ran after her.

MJ turned to Peter with a wry smile. “I suppose that means we’re babysitting those two.”

“Gwen is still older than you,” Peter reminded with a laugh.

“That doesn’t make me any less the dad of this group.” That Harry was firmly the mom didn’t need clarification.

“Peter?” Haruka said, still looking uncertain about all that was happening.

He gave her a soft smile and squeezed her shoulder. “Don’t worry. We’ll be careful. Why don’t you hide inside a shop until it’s over?”

It was clear that she didn’t want to let Peter go off on his own, but she didn’t have enough control over her programming to stop him. She stood on the sidewalk, wringing her hands in a steady loop, and watched Peter and MJ chase after their two team members. Peter did his best not to feel guilty about that. MJ, thankfully, didn’t say anything to Peter about the exchange.

Traffic on the bridge was stopped due to the fight. Miles clambered up on top of a semi-truck to get a better view, squinting into the distance. “We should try to get closer. I can’t see anything from here.” He looked up at the support beams. “And the higher seats are taken.”

All of the tallest parts of the bridge were covered in players, though there were few that braved to push further than halfway across. The very real fear of death made plenty of people nervous about getting too close, regardless of how safe they were outside of the red ring.

Something in the distance swooshed over the rooftops, an eerie, cackling laugh floating across the water. Gwen pouted as it flew out of sight while dodging various player attacks. “That Boss isn’t big at all. How is that supposed to be intimidating?”

“I, for one, appreciate that not every Boss is towering over me,” Peter announced.

“Wimp,” she said before jogging forward through the lines of parked traffic.

“Gwen, don’t,” MJ scolded as she followed. “We should keep our distance.”

“Oh, no!” Gwen wailed. “Harry will be so mad if he finds out we got closer.”

Miles laughed and ran after them, smoothly tumbling over cartops as he went. Peter shook his head with a smile and followed, waving at a few people he knew that perched higher up or were splayed out on top of trucks like they were stargazing. It was strange to think that Boss fights had become a spectator sport akin to some kind of social gathering. Then again, what else was there to do in Marvel Online?

They crossed the halfway point of the bridge, the crowd around them thinning out due to it. Miles managed to climb up somewhere higher to get a better view. He opened up his screen to start typing notes as he watched the teamwork happening in the distance. Gwen climbed even higher, leaning out over the water as she attempted to read the title card.

“Really, guys, what if we trigger something?” MJ asked, tossing her hands in the air, though it sounded more like she was worried about being chewed out by Harry later.

“Don’t worry.” Someone further ahead of them raised their voice to be heard over all the noise as the battle grew closer to them. “Even if you walk across the line, you won’t be targeted immediately. Your level is too low.”

“How do you know my level?” Gwen demanded, ready to fight for her honor despite how true it was.

The stranger smirked. “I can smell newb on you.”

Peter wondered how close he was in level to those fighting. He had made it quite far once he’d started soloing in secret. There were plenty of groups looking for help in warding off small effect enemies during event runs, so Peter had been able to gain a lot at first for relatively little effort. After that, he’d been better able to grind on his own by defeating small clusters of criminals. His experience points had tripled once he finally started listening to Aunt May about talking to NPCs more often.

That first reform had been game changing.

“They’re about to knock out the first health bar!” someone shouted, and everyone perked up, eager to see what the new Boss power would be.

“I still can’t see who they’re fighting,” Gwen complained.

“It’s a Boss called Green Goblin,” someone supplied.

And then, all hell broke loose.

For the first time in game history, the Boss circle expanded. Not only that, it expanded beyond the borough it was in. The ring rushed by all those gathered on the bridge and spilled into Manhattan. For a heartbeat, everyone held their breaths in collective shock before someone screamed. It was chaos as players ran back the way they’d come, desperately chasing after the line of red that ate up more and more city blocks.

NPCs abandoned their cars and followed, plowing through Peter as he tried to push through the sudden tide of people. “Miles!” Peter bellowed, pushing through the mass of panicked bodies. Players were scrambling over each other, jumping, or falling in order to get their feet back on asphalt. “Gwen!”

“Hold on!” Mary Jane’s voice trailed over the surround sound of screams and bellows. Peter leaped over a car and caught sight of the bridge railing where Gwen was being hauled up from where she dangled over the water. Miles had one hand and MJ the other. Gwen must have fallen or been knocked off the railing by panicked players.

They couldn’t haul her up while in their secret identity. All of their strength bonuses were left behind with their items. Peter called his menu as he ran, activating the first high strength item he saw. Thick, brown gloves faded into existence, running up to his elbow. The green player icon pinged to life over his head.

Peter was within reach, his fingertip stretching to where Gwen was swaying in the gusts of wind over the water. He opened his mouth to call out to her, but it was drowned in a rush of noise and piercing, maniacal laughter. Dread pouring through his veins, he turned to see the Boss flying right at him, a pumpkin-shaped bomb in one hand. The blurry images of Team X-men formed an odd sort of frame around the Green Goblin as they desperately gave chase.

It was only then that Peter realized what his secretly higher level meant. He was a good eight levels above his group, which put him in the range of those on the front lines. Of those teams like X-men. The entire bridge was in danger because Peter’s player icon and level was a beacon for the game to come find him.

Spinning around, Peter threw himself at a car and yanked it up into the air. The bomb hit it with a concussive force, sending the vehicle flying into another. Peter was thrown backwards and landed hard on mental and glass, his health dropping into the yellow. Some kind of red laser beam hit Green Goblin from behind, causing a distraction. The Boss banked around with a cackle, taking off after the group as Peter pulled himself from the wreckage.

An ear-piercing scream cut through the battle, and Peter’s heart stopped beating for a moment. In the distance, Miles was splayed on his side, most of his body covered in the red, grid mesh of wounds. Mary Jane was on her stomach, half her face vanished with the same damage, the other hand strained and desperate. Her arms were stuck through the railings, reaching for the water, but her hands were empty.

Peter rushed forward and hit the railing in time to see Gwen’s terrified blue eyes surrounded by fluttering white blonde hair before water arced up to engulf her like some monstrous maw. Her health was already in the red. The impact took the rest of it. Shards of shattered graphics floated up from the choppy surface as her body fell apart.

Distantly, Peter knew he was screaming, but he couldn’t hear it.

_ “Get wrecked!” Gwen shouted through the headset as his avatar on WoW died in a raid. _

_ “I can’t believe I’m spending this much money on a gaming system just because I love you guys,” Gwen groused over Discord. _

_ “Have I ever told you that you’re my favorite person?” Gwen grinned wide while hanging on his arm as he spent hard-earned coins on what felt like the most expensive cupcake in all of Marvel Online. _

_ “We’re a family!” Gwen announced as she twirled around to smile at all of them, hair fluttering around her, almost glowing in the sunlight. _

“We have to go!” Mary Jane shouted in Peter’s ear, snapping him back to the present. She had Miles hefted over one shoulder in a fireman’s carry. When Peter didn’t react, she grabbed his wrist and pulled them along, running for the new edge of the Boss circle with everyone else.

Belatedly, Peter’s mind caught up with him. He couldn’t go with them. The closer they were to his aggro radius, the more danger they were in. Stopping abruptly, he yanked his wrist from her grip. She spun around to him, face set and determined, eyes ablaze.

“Run!” Peter demanded. “I’ll—”

“You’ll nothing, you self-sacrificing dick. We’re staying together!”

“You don’t understand—”

“Peter.” Miles looked up with only one eye intact, his health bar terrifyingly low. “Don’t leave us.”

“You don’t get to split up the family!” Mary Jane shouted. “Now, come on!”

_ “We’re a family!” Gwen announced. _

Peter felt like he was about to rattle apart. He was trying to save them because they _ were _ his family, his chosen family. He loved them so much. Why wouldn’t they let him save them?

“Run!” a voice from behind them shouted.

They all looked to see the Boss coming for them again. They took off once more, and Peter’s feet had moved on instinct, but he couldn’t keep running with them. He veered off to the other side of the road, the cackling laughter growing ever closer, covering the sound of his name being shouted by MJ and Miles.

Of course, Peter had forgotten a key issue with Boss battles amidst all the chaos — they all had area of effect attacks. With a triumphant shout, Green Goblin unleashed a spray of spinning pumpkin bombs. They didn’t explode this time, but rather, they hissed as green gas filled the air. A warning flashed in front of Peter that reaction time had been slowed by 50% while a _ poisoned _notification glowed in the top corner of his vision.

He fought to move his arm as fast as he needed to in order to get to his inventory. He’d only just unlocked the ability to buy antidotes, and there was only one in his stockpile. He’d never encountered a villain who used them and hadn’t expected to for a while. His legs pumped and his arms strained, but it felt like trying to run underwater. His heart hammered away erratically in stark contrast to his slow movements.

Antidote activated.

Peter stumbled forward as his limbs unlocked but was immediately thrown sideways by a bomb lobbed in his direction. He slid across the pavement and into a car. His vision flashed red, his health slipping away to the last few points. His inventory was still open, however, and he tapped on and activated a medipack. It pulled him steadily back up into the yellow.

Blinking away the filter, he peered through tires and across the black pavement, to see MJ and Miles on the ground, unable to move. Tears slid down Mary Jane’s cheeks, but there was a peaceful smile on her face. Red hair pooled under her head like fresh blood. 

“You’re alive,” she said, her lips forming the words though Peter couldn’t hear them.

“No, please!” Peter begged to the world around him, to the Boss above him, to the blind eyes of Martin Goodman, to all those ears who weren’t listening. He stumbled to his feet with desperation. “Please don’t take them from me!”

He ran. He ran for all he was worth, leaping and dodging vehicles as he went. He sprinted for MJ’s melancholy acceptance of the outcome and Miles’s terrified eye, always so afraid of his own ability to stay alive. Peter watched the red of their health bars shrink, bit by bit, while demanding more from his body and receiving barely a blip from the programming in return.

He called their names. Begged them to stay. Pushed for all he was worth. He just needed to activate another medipack on them. He could save them. He just had to reach them first.

And he did. In time to catch the shattered pieces that floated around him as he dropped to his knees, watching as the iridescent shards burst against his skin like the ghost of a caress.

_ “Go get ‘em, Tiger,” Mary Jane encouraged through the headpiece. _

_ “Why are you so nice?” Miles all but sobbed as new armor was transferred into his account. _

_ “I don’t care if we’re stuck in this game, we need a break, and we’re going bowling,” MJ announced as she herded the group into an NPC owned shop for the first time. _

_ “Peter! Peter! Look what I made! Isn’t this so cool?” Miles asked, jumping up and down with excitement over his invention. _

_ “I love this song,” Mary Jane confessed as she laid her head on Peter’s shoulder where they sat in the park, listening to the player-formed band. _

_ “Thanks for always having my back, man,” Miles said with a bashful smile and a blush. _

It was so hard to breathe.

That seemed counterintuitive. There wasn’t really air in the game, so why would it matter if he could breathe it or not? And yet he couldn’t. His chest burned with the need to suck in air, his body shaking with the force of it.

“Come back,” Peter whispered to the last of the fading shards of code.

“Peter,” a quiet voice called to him. A delicate hand cupped his cheek, brushing away the tears and ignoring the pained noises he made. “Peter, it’s not safe on these streets anymore.”

“Haruka?” Peter was finally able to focus on her worried face. How was she even here? NPCs should all be hiding in the buildings. She had no gear to protect her, no immunity from the area of effect damage. She was going to die, just like everyone else.

A wounded noise ripped from Peter as a low burning filled his limbs. He needed to make sure she stayed alive. She had to. She had to live so she could learn more and be more and smile at Peter when there was no one else.

Haruka tugged at his arm. “Not safe.”

Pushing himself up to unsteady feet, Peter wrapped an arm around her waist and tried to run, but he couldn’t seem to find his balance. Haruka held him up more than he cared to admit as they rushed away from the battle. Team X-men had the Boss surrounded how. Hopefully, they’d cut him off from any further attempts to cross the bridge.

Once back into the city streets, Peter couldn’t find the red outline of the Boss circle through the buildings. He had no idea how far away it was or if they’d even make it. All the buildings now caught in the field would be locked from within, offering no safe harbor for either of them. He didn’t know what to do.

“Safe!” Haruka pointed in the direction of [Harlem River Park](https://www.nycgovparks.org/parks/harlem-river-park) to their right. The parks were safe zones! It was only a few blocks away. They could make it. They had to make it.

Together, they turned down the road they needed and ran. Haruka kept a steadying arm on Peter the entire time, and he hated to admit that he needed it. The world around him was oddly fuzzy and the ground in front of him was skewed, making it hard to see where he was going and causing him to stumble.

It took nearly half a block to realize his inventory was still open. With numb fingers, he tapped through the screens to equip anything he came across, unable to even understand the stats on half of it. Anything was better than nothing at this point.

_ I’m probably in shock. Is this what shock feels like? Maybe Aunt May would know… _

The road curved along the river, slowly rounding the buildings until it offered a clear shot to the park they needed. There were still other players running for its safety, already having realized that finding the edge of the Boss circle wasn’t feasible. Peter closed his screen and realized they weren’t running. Of course, he’d never activated his running skill. He should do that if he could remember how. He could pick Haruka up and—

The rush of water startled them both. Like a bad horror movie, Peter turned to see Green Goblin on his glider, speeding across the surface of the river, the force of the engines turning the waves to mist around him. No other player was close by. Only Peter. Only Haruka. That demented laughing face turned to Peter with a twisted grin.

“Get down!” Peter shoved Haruka away from him and lifted his hand. There was a metal bat in it. He didn’t remember getting the item or equipping it, but it would have to do. He used it to knock away the bat-shaped blades launched at him before charging with all the wrath his recent losses could muster. He swung hard, aiming to land a blow on the front of the glider and send the Boss crashing into the ground.

His bat hit the pavement with a loud clang, laughter trailing in the wake of it. He whirled around to see the Boss arc above his head and raise a bomb. He crossed the gloves in front of his face and braced for impact. In the space between his arms, Haruka’s worried face looked back at him from where she had fallen on the ground.

“Go!” Peter yelled as the bomb hit.

The world turned to fire. His ears rang. He blinked, and that darkness felt like an eternity. When he opened his eyes again, it was to see Haruka on the ground, eyes closing. Peter scrambled to her side, screaming her name and hearing only cackled echoes. He fell to his knees before her, yanking open his inventory and pulling out a medipack. He activated it on her and—

Invalid Target.

Peter cursed, his voice hoarse with emotion and tears. “Work, you piece of shit!”

Invalid Target.

“It’s so good to see you,” Haruka whispered.

“No! No, no, no!” Peter shouted, a sob ripping through his chest. “One of you has to live! Please!”

Somewhere above him was the sound of thrusters, but he couldn’t bring himself to turn around. He kept pushing the activate button over and over again, demanding a different result.

Invalid Target.

Invalid Target.

Invalid Target.

Flames burst over him like a dying star. Distantly, he heard Johnny’s voice yelling at him to get away. How was he here? Oh. Johnny was subscribed to their team. Miles must have typed out an SOS while MJ attempted to carry him to safety. Even in death, the team was saving Peter’s life, and he was unable to do the same for any of them. He wailed and cursed and slammed the medipack’s activation button but it changed nothing.

Glittery fragments floated into the air around Haruka’s body as she reached out and touched the spider necklace around Peter’s throat. “Pretty,” she whispered.

And then she was nothing but bits of light that his hands were unable to capture and contain. He tipped his head back and screamed as the sky turned blue and pink with the beginnings of a sunset. The world around him remained so beautiful and full of life despite the death that surrounded him. Despite the piece inside of him that died with the loss of his chosen family.

Congratulations on defeating the Green Goblin!

** 09/2024 **

“Harry blamed me,” Peter whispered, unable to speak any louder for the lump in his throat. “Hell, I blamed me, too. Still do.” He looked down at his hands, remembering the way Harry had raged and shaken Peter, demanding why he hadn’t stopped the others from getting so close, why he’d hidden his extra levels, why he was saying Haruka’s name alongside his family’s. “Harry sold the hideout and dissolved Team Spider. He hasn’t really spoken to me since.”

“It wasn’t—” Wade started.

“It _ was _ my fault,” Peter interrupted. “I accept that.” He sucked in a shaky breath. “A few weeks after that, I saw Haruka again. I ran up to her like a sobbing lunatic, but she didn’t know me. She didn’t remember any of the words I’d taught her. She had a different name and different personality. She told me to leave her alone and ran off. People seem to think that NPCs can’t die because they come back, but they don’t. They’re not the same person anymore. Haruka is gone.”

After seeing the Haruka who wasn’t, Peter broke. He’d run to Aunt May’s, his health bar barely keeping him alive but not even remembering what villains he must have encountered along the way. Peter had keened and sobbed about the loss of his family into her arms. He’d told about the family who he felt never wanted him back in the real world, and the family he’d formed in Marvel Online, and how Harry turned his back and left Peter alone.

How Peter deserved to be alone.

That was the day Aunt May adopted Peter, and he’d been given his own room upstairs, meals anytime he wanted, and a loving shoulder to lean on at all times. He’d spent weeks in her house after that, though he was sure he would have let himself die without her. The only reason he was sane and functioning now was because of how she’d helped him through the grief with her extensive mental health knowledge.

Wade was quiet for a long time before he asked, “Do you think I died and came back with a different identity?”

Peter startled from his memories. “What?”

Deadpool shrugged. “I don’t remember anything before Weapon X. I can’t remember specific days. There was only pain and experiments, and it’s all blipped and choppy.” He paused to fiddle with the handles on his knives. “Heroes came sometimes. They got tortured, too. They could escape, though, but they never helped the rest of us, no matter how much we shouted for help.”

Did the other players assume Deadpool was an NPC and leave him behind? Why? Couldn’t they see the player icon? Peter looked up at exactly that and watched as it flickered with Wade’s painful memories.

“I can’t die,” Deadpool admitted, kicking his feet into the air where they hung over the ledge as if that was somehow a casual statement.

“Wait.” Peter turned to stare at Wade directly. “What do you mean?”

“I was really scared of dying at first. I wished and wished. Then one day, those fucking scientists killed me.” He rubbed the back of his neck as he looked over and smiled in a way that made Peter uneasy. “I woke up five seconds later. The shitheads in the facility were amazed, so they kept doing it.”

“But… that’s impossible,” Peter murmured, stunned beyond belief.

“Ha! That’s what they said.”

As far as Peter knew, there was only one Revival Item in the game So long as it was activated within nine seconds of a player’s death, it would revive them. If Wade was only dead for five seconds, then that matched the timeline between death in game and the real world. However, Wade didn’t have the Revival Item. Johnny had found it long ago during the Christmas Event. He’d risked his life to bring it to Peter, only for them both to discover it was a one time use item.

Peter had gone on to offer it to Sue and Reed as a wedding gift. With their shared inventory, they’d be able to save one another if anything happened. It had felt like the right thing to do, and Peter didn’t regret that decision.

So if there was only one item in the game with only one use, then how had Wade survived?

“Could you see your health bar?” Peter asked.

“Yep, even after it was empty. The whole world goes grey when you die, but you can’t move anymore, not that I could move much anyhow being strapped to that table.” Wade let out a half-crazed chuckle before gripping the handle of his knife as something feral twisted his falsely unaffected smile. “Then I hit level 60, ya know? And the annoying boxes I saw started pressing buttons on their own. Next thing I know, I could escape anything and kill anyone.”

Level 60. Every 30 levels, players could design a specialty power or tool. If it was too strong, it had extreme setbacks or cooldown times to balance it out. If Wade had somehow managed to find a recovery skill at level 30 and then an ability to destroy immortal objects at level 60… But that would compromise the integrity of the game. An immortal player with the ability to destroy pieces of the world would be the antithesis of the whole game.

Martin wouldn’t allow that, would he?

_ Or he could be an AI with access to the system. Aunt May never touches any screens either. _

Peter felt nauseous as he shook his head to dispel the thought. “You’re not an NPC.”

“After all that, you still—”

“Yes.” Peter stared at Wade hard enough to watch the man curl in on himself with insecurity. “You’re a person, Wade. Plain and simple.”

There was a long pause before Wade called his player menu and tapped something. His mask faded from existence, leaving behind a face that had Peter sucking in his breath. The skin was warped and scarred, hairless and malformed. It was gruesome to look at, and certainly something he’d need some time to get used to seeing.

“Why would anyone choose to look like this in a game about living as a hero?” Wade asked, resigned to what he believed to be the inevitable answer.

Peter thought about Sarah and the augmentations she’d received by staying in Weapon X for as short of a time as she had. If Wade had been trapped there for over a year, then those aesthetics would be too much for the graphics to handle, ending, possibly, in what Wade had. However, that idea was a stretch, as Wade could have just as easily looked like a pile of spliced graphics.

Though Peter personally thought the idea had merit, Wade would likely not, so he went a different route in his answer. “Perhaps you wanted to escape the beauty expectations of the world you left behind, to be known as a hero for what you do, not as someone worthy of attention only because you look attractive.”

Wade turned away, his bottom lip quivering as he tilted his head back to the bright expanse of blue sky. “Bad for your eyes to stare at the sun,” he murmured. “Makes ‘em water.”

Peter shifted to gaze out over the water once more, pretending he hadn’t seen the tear trailing down Wade’s cheek. Pretending there weren’t some of his own still under his mask. “Yeah. It does.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Haruka is a nod to Asuna’s voice actor in SAO because I needed a name and I’m bad at picking names so might as well make it a name with some kind of story significance.
> 
> Welp. We have hit the character death tag, folks. This hurts me more than it hurts you. Maybe. The upside is I managed to control my tears while writing it. lol

**Author's Note:**

> http://thatvixenchick.tumblr.com  
https://twitter.com/The_Vixen13 (nsfw)  
So by popular request, my cats have their own tumblr now. https://vixen13scats.tumblr.com/
> 
> Follow my journey to a professional pen name here:  
http://racheljaquis.wordpress.com


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